By John Peeters GERMANY
meeting – traditional but future-facing
Leipzig, a beautiful city with a rich and varied history, hosted the annual general meeting of the BDC, the Bund Deutscher Champignon- und Kulturpilzanbauer E.V., in the last weekend of September. This was the second time that Leipzig acted as the venue to welcome the BDC, the AGM was also organised here back in 2009. The meeting had a traditional German character, but the lectures mainly focused on the future.
T
Since the arrival of Aldi and Lidl,
Swiss mushroom imports have risen from 1000
tons to 4000 tons annually.
he H4 hotel, a modern and extremely convenient venue for this type of gathering, welcomed the around 200 participants. The invitation-only
meetings for BDC members to discuss internal association matters were held on Thursday and Friday morning. And of course we enjoyed a great evening of entertainment in the centre of Leipzig in Auerbachs Keller with a buffet and a good glass of beer or wine, before returning by coach to the hotel located about 10 kilometres from the city centre.
Waldemar Schuller Hans Deckers’s successor as chairman was decided at the members only meeting. Waldemar Schuller of Dohme Champignon was unanimously chosen to be the new chairman. The new board also includes Bernd Böging (Mjko) as vice chairman and representative of the GEPC and Patrick Deckers and Andreas Rode as board members. Christian Nacke joined the advisory board. The public sessions of the AGM were opened according to tradition by Michael Legrand of the “Grünes Medienhaus” who reflected on the pro- motional activities organised by his company on behalf of German growers. This tradition started at the 61st BDC Conference in Leipzig in 2009, so Legrand presented an overview of everything that has been achieved until now. Legrand: “In early October 2009 in Leipzig, the BDC decided to commission us to launch a campaign aimed at
10 MUSHROOM BUSINESS
promoting the sales of German mushrooms. That campaign is still running. The
www.gesun-
depilze.de website went live in 2010, and in 2011 we had 600 visits a month. Now there are 20,000 visits a month. We target the media and consumers with the message that mushrooms are healthy, and that German mushrooms are fresh, food-safe and high quality. The first website primarily focused on families and health and underwent complete redesigns in both 2015 and 2019. We also publish as much as possible in magazines and news reports. One example was being able to clarify that German shii-take were not affected by the nuclear disaster that took place in Fukushima. In 2014 we started our school project that informed and educated schools about mushroom growing. Special grow-your-own mushroom packs with substrate could also be ordered. It was a tremendous success. The influence of social media started gaining momentum about 10-15 years ago so we launched a Facebook community in 2014. We now have grown to more than 12,000 followers. Instagram followed in 2018. We notice that short clips are really popular and we have also started collaborations with influencers.”
Switzerland Legrand was followed by Nicole Badertscher of the BDC’s sister organisation in Switzerland: the VSP (Verband Schweizer Pilzproduzente). She elaborated on the situation in Switzerland. Centrally located in Europe, but not a member of
The 77th BDC annual
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
