More optimism

Perhaps this is what describes the past two months in the FMCG market the best. As I have learnt it recently, it is a good idea to watch the “champagne index” if we want to be more certain, because if champagne sales are growing, the population is more optimistic and consumption is no longer limited to the bare essentials, so there is hope for a positive economic cycle to begin. As a number of shopping baskets already contained champagne in April, and let’s say two consecutive months have brought positive financial results for many companies, we can hope that things are starting to pick up.

While there was no mention of the champagne index at our Business Meetup & Business Dinner event at the end of May, there was certainly some positivity. You can read the details in our next issue, but I can definitely say that we are in a much better place than we were a year ago. Of course there risky movements in the world, but if we only focus on these, we are missing the small positive results on a daily basis, even though they are hopeful. As I have said it in my introduction of the event, we consider this May meeting for executives to be a bit like Day Zero of our big Business Days conference in the autumn, as we discuss all the important macroeconomic issues influencing business strategies and try to paint a big picture. Then September will come, when for five days we will be looking at what is happening specifically to the FMCG market this year and in 2025 – first and foremost in Hungary.

A good basis for all of this is the analysis of 2023 in the present issue of our magazine. Market researchers, retail chains and trade associations tell us in detail what they saw last year and how they assess what happened. It is needless to say there is no shortage of plans for this year or a lack of directions and steps to be taken, based on what happened last year. Putting the icing on the lake, there is the FMCG Retail Ranking 2023, with all the interesting data just a few pages away.

I like each issue for a different reason, but I love the June issue of Trade magazin every year because reading the many articles in it gives me an accurate summary of the state of play in the FMCG market, the situation and the results. There is nothing but straight talk there. From this honesty we can keep building more efficiently and with more certainty than when we only suspect things but don’t know them for sure.

In the meantime a lot of things have happened to us and we have tried to squeeze them all into this summer issue of the magazine, so that we give you a good two months’ worth of reading. We are going back to our very successful Future Store, we are presenting the sensational Innovation of the Year winners, as well as offering you a round-up of the promotions of the year. We are bringing you successful national and international trade show reports and of course we continue with our category analysis for the season, alongside our traditional regular column series.

Have a great summer reading Trade magazin, we will be back in early September!

Best regards, Zsuzsanna Hermann, Editor in Chief