K 2022 Post Show Report

K 2022, the largest plastics exhibition in the world, celebratred its 70th anniversary in Dusseldorf, Germany between 19th-26th October 2022 with over 176,000 visitors in attendence.

"We can all say that we have needed the K exhibition. In a post pandemic world with travel restrictions lifted and meetings face to face back on, it was incredible timing to have the single biggest platform for our industry back and better than ever!" said Justyna Elliott, Senior Business Development Executive at the British Plastics Federation.

The 'K' show, which takes place every three years, was oversubscribed with applications for space closing 18 months before the exhibition even started. In the end the show welcomed 3,037 exhibitors who between them took up nearly 179,000 sqm of net space (up slightly on the 2019 show). Of those exhibiting 72 were from Great Britain.

As predicted by the organisers and following trends seen at other similar shows the overall number of visitors were down compared to the previous year. In the end the show recorded 22% fewer visitors than the previous show - K2019 (16-23 Oct 2019). This decrease was down in at least part to a lack of Chinese visitors at the show - in 2019 there was over 6,500 visitors from China at 'K'.

Visitors and Exhibitors at Recent 'K' Fairs

Year	Number of Visitors	Number of Countries Visitors Came From	Exhibitors	Net Exhibition Space
K2022	176,000	157	3,037	178,965 sqm
K2019	225,000	165	3,327	177,035 sqm
K2016	232,053	161	3,293	173,025 sqm
K2013	217,423	108	3,220	171,245 sqm
K2010	220,000	-	3,102	164,125 sqm
K2007	242,000	-	3,114	168,167 sqm

Of the 176,000 visitors over 70% came from outside of Germany, with visitors coming from 157 countries.

The show organisers recorded a large proportion of the guests from Netherlands, Italy, Turkey, France, Belgium, Poland and Spain. The East Asia visitor numbers were lower than in previous years, due to the travel restrictions and quarantine requirements, however there were high numbers of visitors from USA, Brazil and India.

The BPF coordinated the British Pavilion of 25 exhibitors and welcomed British visitors at the UK Visitors Area supported by the UK's Department for International Trade. The British Village in Hall 5 featured sixteen booths around a communal meeting areas with tables, chairs and acceess to free refreshments and unlimited coffee - highly appreciated by the exhibitors and their prospectous customers.

Pic.British Village at K 2022

The British Pavilion featured a special area for the UK visitors to use free of charge to host their meetings during K 2022. The UK Visitors Area supported by the UK's Department for International Trade (DIT) provided a hub for the British companies who were not exhibiting. The hub enabled them to hold pre-arranged meetings on the stand which proved hugely popular throughout.

“The Department for International Trade’s Chemicals team was delighted to support the British Plastics Federation presence at the K Trade Show this year, with the addition of a meeting area for UK companies to use. This the first time the DIT Chemicals team had worked with the BPF at a trade show and we were impressed with the layout of the stand, the professionalism and commitment of BPF colleagues and the enthusiasm of the UK companies to utilise the show fully in this post-COVID world. It was fantastic to see the UK village constantly busy with meetings and discussions.” said Martin Olds, Senior Manager, Chemicals Export and Investment, Department for International Trade

Pic: BPF Featured in the K Show Daily (P22) - View online HERE

The BPF and DIT has received such positive feedback from the UK visitors who were able to give a stand number to their contacts and meet them without at a dedicated stand. As one of the vistors said: "Thank You to the BPF for hosting various members of the PCN and myself during K. Whilst the PCN was not present this year as an exhibitor, it was great to be welcomed at the British Pavilion as visitors. Huge thanks to Justyna for making everybody feel welcome and running a very efficient stand. Our members said what a nice group of people the British Pavilion were and how well the stand was run." Dr Robin Kent, Tangram Technology Ltd.

On day one of the show, 19th of October, the UK's Department for International Trade hosted a drinks reception on the UK Visitors Area. The HM Consul - General, Rafe Courage visited some of the British exhibitors who had stands outside the British Pavilion and joined the drinks reception to meet the exhibitors within the Pavilion.

Pic. L: Philip Law, BPF Ditrector General, R: Rafe Courage, HM Consul - General

The drinks reception not only enabled British exhibitors to network and get to know each other but also to meet customers as the event attracted from guests from all around the world.

All of the British Pavilion exhibitors highly valued the inclusivness and feeling of comradery that the British Pavilion provided. There were a lot of cross business discussions that took place amongst our UK exhibitors, who met at the K and never met before.

In words of another visitor "Fantastic few days at K 2022 in Dusseldorf. Always intriguing to see new technologies and developments on offer within the industry. Many tanks to Rafe Courage and his team from the British Consul-General for all of their assistance and to the team at the British Plastics Federation for sharing their knowledge and experience" Graham Myles, Mytron Systems.

British Pavilion at K2022 Pic. From L to R: Philip Law, Director General, British Plastics Federation, Rafe Courage, HM Consul General, Department for International Trade, Stephen Hunt, Membership Services Director, British Plastics Federation, Ayca Kilicli, Senior Trade and Investment Advisor - Chemicals, Department for International Trade

What the British exhibitors and visitors said about K 2022...

“This is the third time Astropol exhibited at the K show within the British Pavilion. K 2022 provided a great opportunity to connect with our existing customers as well as our agent a distribution partners. It provided an ideal platform to reconnect with contacts that we made at K2019 too, this was vitally important following some lost time and opportunity due to the pandemic. This year we linked with new leads from all corners of the world and it was pleasing that the enquiries were of a very high quality and were very targeted. Thank you BPF for organising the British Pavilion, we will be signing to K 2025 no doubt."
Chris Wright, Astropol Ltd

"Thank you once again for all your help with the K Show! The K- fair was a large, well-organised event full of opportunities to meet new clients and communicate our company’s work in plastics recycling. We were able to meet other exhibitors in similar business categories, and the event organisers were very helpful and supportive."
Hannah Davis, Plastic Energy

" It felt like our most successful K show to-date. There was a lot of praise for our cloud hosted monitoring system and huge interest in our new Energy Monitoring and Alerts module.Thank you for organising and managing K for us. We are really happy with how the show went."
John Hardwick, Intouch Monitoring Limited

"A massive thank you to the BPF for all their support during this year’s K show. We really appreciated the updates and reminders as well as your onsite support. We have just had our review meeting of the show and would like to book for 2025!"
Hannah Sookias, Aquapak Polymers Ltd

"I would just like to say thank you to the BPF for your hospitality & assistance whilst R&D Leverage were exhibiting at the K show"
Craig Carrington, R&D/Leverage

"Just to say a very big thank you for all your help at the K Fair. The Polydist team were extremely impressed with the layout of the stand, the meeting area and the hospitality for the team and their visitors"
Becci Fisher, Polydist (UK) Limited

Guide to British Exhibitors

At the show the BPF handed out 1,000 copies of a specially produced "British Plastics Industry Directory".

The directory included information on all 72 British companies exhibiting, all companies taking part in the official BPF 'catalogue show' as well as all 500+ BPF member firms (including raw materials suppliers, processors, machinery suppliers, recyclers and service providers).

A PDF version of the Guide can be downloaded HERE and viewed online below..