The world of sweets and snacks will focus on Cologne as Sweet Week will bring the industry together in February 2025.
The Sweet Week has set new benchmarks as an event, content, innovation platform, and networking hub. It has covered the entire industry's value chain and brought players from the industry, trade, and supplier sectors together in one location.
Hall 10.1, which creates space for new ideas and cooperation, has taken centre stage at the Sweet Week. Lab5 by ISM has united ISM with ProSweets Cologne and offered a platform for the New Product Showcase—a special exhibition for the most innovative new products, start-ups, scale-ups, trend snacks, and finest creations.
This connection is reinforced by Hall 10.1's spatial proximity to the theme world of Packaging Materials and Sweet and Snackable Ingredients, which has acted as a central interface between supply and the end product.
"The emphasis of ISM and ProSweets Cologne 2025 is on the active dialogue and lending the industry targeted support with today's most urgent challenges. In the scope of the Sweet Week, our diversified programme offers valuable insights,” said Sabine Schommer, Director of ISM.
“Through the combination of practical best practices, trailblazing innovations and top-class industry experts, we enable the participants to develop concrete solutions that pave the way into a more sustainable and efficient future.”
The Lab5 by ISM has also been enhanced by interactive formats like the "Live Sweets Creation," where the production of sweets can be experienced up close. The get-together at the GISMO Bar has made innovation tangible and promoted the exchange in an inspiring atmosphere.
"We would like to particularly accentuate our joint goal of actively pushing the networking between production teams and supplier companies in the scope of the Expert Stage and the Sweet Week – Talks and Tasting Stage, which not only creates a platform for conveying knowledge but also offers room for a practice-oriented exchange and networking,” said Guido Henschke, Director ProSweets Cologne.
“In this way, we actively contribute towards the sweets and snacks industry remaining fit for the future in a world that is becoming increasingly more digitalised and sustainably oriented.”
On Central Boulevard, the Expert Stage has offered first-class input on urgent industry themes such as sustainability, digitalisation, and artificial intelligence. The expertise of the knowledge partners Innova Market Insights and Euromonitor International will enrich the programme and create a well-founded basis for future-looking discussions and practical solutions.
Innovation and interaction also melt into a unique experience on the Sweet Week—Talks & Tasting Stage. The new format combined knowledge transfer, innovation, and interactive experiences into a diversified programme that addresses industry professionals and interested visitors. The latter can taste the latest products on-site and be inspired.
Further highlights include insights into future industry trends, such as AI, live podcasts with industry insiders like Food Insider T. Gross, workshops on sensor technology and trends by the food expert Hanni Rützler, and pitches by start-ups hosted by the investor, business angel, and founder Robert Kronekker.
Insights into the recycling strategy for reducing waste also opened up sustainable perspectives for the industry. They offered a foretaste of the ANUGA HORIZON, hosted by Theresa Hingsammer, Director Anuga HORIZON.
The Sweet Week Production Summit has become a format that explicitly connects production teams with ProSweets Cologne's supply industry.
The three-minute pitch sessions of the suppliers, which will be discussed in depth in a subsequent matchmaking forum in the Networking Area to promote concrete solutions and business relations, are especially worth highlighting.
Lectures like "AI in food production: Intelligent planning for more efficiency and sustainability" by Maximilian Köhler (Optiwiser AI Solution) or the case study "Production planning of the future" by Norbert Weichele (OMMM Operations Management Solutions GmbH) will provide the industry with new impulses.
The ProSweets Cologne Party will round off the Summit. The awards at ISM will also pay tribute to excellent contributions and innovations in the sweets and snacks industry and set important impulses for the industry's future.
More about the ISM event programme here
