Lübeck is traditionally a centre of the food industry, where today some 100 companies make sales totalling 600 million EUR and provide about 5000 jobs. Key areas of the food industry in Lübeck currently include confectionery and cereal production, fish processing, and also the wholesale trade and mechanical engineering for the food processing industry.

The foodRegio working groups

The foodRegio working groups constitute the heart of the network’s activities, because it is here that the companies perform joint work on specific tasks, develop ongoing projects and also engage in networking at employee level.

The foodRegio office currently moderates eight active working groups:

• "Procurement"
• "Logistics"
• "Human resources / Training"
• "Human resources / General"
• "Market and communication"
• "Quality and certification"
• "Product and innovation"
• "Process and innovation"

Each working group holds two to three meetings every year.

foodRegio training courses

Needs-oriented knowledge dissemination for the food industry

There is great general demand within foodRegio for wide-ranging and industry-specific training courses for employees. In the food industry there are numerous requirements that companies have to meet by ensuring systematic and continuous ongoing training courses. In the foodRegio network, needs are identified at “grass-roots” level, i.e. in the working groups. The relevant foodRegio contacts translate the training requirements identified into a range of very high quality services.

foodRegio projects

As well as the ongoing work in the foodRegio working groups, topics are constantly arising which, owing to their complexity, topicality or special relevance, need to be dealt with outside the working groups. These are foodRegio projects, and here we do not always stick closely to the exact definition. We use this approach to professionalise our network management processes and ensure targeted steering of innovation projects.

One example of our management approach is our "energy management" project. This emerged from the "Process & Innovation" working group. Following the completion of the pilot phase in 2012/2013, we have now joined the project members in developing an energy management system for certification under ISO 50001.

foodRegio annual events

Information sharing is the life-blood of a living network. In our working groups, training courses and members’ meetings our members engage in networking at expert and other levels. But a living network – and foodRegio is a living network – also needs the formal framework of a major event (at least) once a year.

foodRegio Trends Event

The Trends Event of the north German food industry offers all interested companies, institutions and individuals a suitable framework where they can find out facts and get to know each other, take part in interesting workshops and simply spend an enjoyable day together.

foodRegio Marketing Event

The foodRegio Marketing Event will in future focus on a specific consumer group every two years and provide an equally appropriate and attractive setting for presenting the results of the studies and analyses carried out during the preceding period.

Am 7.10.2014 wurde foodRegio das „Silber Label“ der European Excellence Initiative (ECEI) verliehen. Dies dokumentiert den Qualitätsnachweis des Clustermanagements des Branchennetzwerks der norddeutschen Ernährungswirtschaft.

foodRegio wird im Jahre 2015 vom Land Schleswig-Holstein mit Bildung und Betreuung des landesweiten Ernährungsclusters beauftragt; 63 Mitglieder in allen 5 norddeutschen Bundesländern entlang der Food-Supply-Chain

Auch dies sind Ergebnisse der 10-jährige foodRegio Erfolgsgeschichte.