EU Food & Drink Update – 2019

Protel tracks capex project activity across the main process sectors to help suppliers win new business. To complement our UK and Ireland food and drink coverage, we’ve now been tracking EU food & drink projects in France, Belgium and The Netherlands for just over 6 months and it’s time to reflect on some our findings so far.

Food & Drink Capex Project Coverage – 2019 Update

Positivity persists Across the Food & Drink Sectors in France, Belgium & the Netherlands

Just like for the UK, the outlook in the food and drink across these three countries is an encouraging one for equipment suppliers. Since our first snapshot of the sector, our research team is reporting on a lot of activity and most of the projects seem to be going ahead as cancellations don’t seem to be affecting the market.

Protel researcher Sarah Spearing notes that unsurprisingly in The Netherlands, the dairy industry sees the biggest investment levels with new production facility, upgrades and expansions projects at Friesland Campina and Fronterra but also Innocent sites.

In Belgium, the team are reporting on activity in the confectionery sector with capacity expansion plans at Ferrero and Belcolade, while the French market is seeing some solid investment to boost production capacity of big bakery brands such as Boulangerie Neuhauser, Bridor and France Cake Tradition.

The team is also detecting several ongoing plans in the distillery and brewery industries across the three countries, and some really exciting projects have already been shared on our database such as the upgrades at one of Kronenbourg’s sites in France, and a new bottling and packaging facility at Browerij de Halve Mann in Belgium.

Click here to access all the details about the projects currently covered by the team and discover budgets, key contacts and equipment requirements. If you don’t yet subscribe to our food and drink project information, follow this link for more on our qualified project leads.

The end of the second quarter is seing a slight slowdown in the number of new projects but engineering houses are very busy with upgrades and expansions therefore facing the challenges of having to prioritise their work. July should see the activity around new build pick up again, especially in France.

Our team has already produced a strong body of work in the EU food & drink sectors with a healthy volume increase every month. To date, we have details on over 100 active food & drink capex projects with a total value of approx. £3.5 billion. The full details of which are available to our subscribers.

Read what AAF has to say about our food and drink project coverage.

Feel to test our database for yourself here or contact us if you would like to request a full demo of our platform for more on all the sectors we cover.