The Pet Industry Federation (PIF) has postponed its international virtual trade show Virtual Petindex (VPI) in order to focus immediately on developing new solutions for UK pet businesses that want to sell their products to customers in the EU.
The event, which was due to take place from 27 February until 7 March, will now be staged later in 2022. The decision was announced following a successful
webinar last week, which highlighted the need for PIF to not only deliver international customers to UK suppliers, but also to have a complementary export solution in place alongside it to enable orders made at VPI to be more easily fulfilled.
Run in partnership with DHL Supply Chain and Associated Veterinary Services, the webinar revealed a range of solutions to help companies overcome the export challenges they have been facing and to open up the European gateway in a reliable and cost-effective way.
The event outlined three potential consolidation options – fully managed groupage solutions with export health certificates and fiscal representation co-ordinated centrally; a solution which would allow larger companies to be part of co-ordinated consignments and handle their own export documentation; and full truckload solutions handled through DHL’s network of warehouses.
PIF chief executive Nigel Baker said: “We were delighted in the level of interest from attendees in the export solutions outlined at our export webinar.
“It is clear that exporters have been hard hit by the changes that Brexit has brought about and there are now huge levels of uncertainty and confusion around export paperwork, as well as a lack of consistency across different EU countries in terms of their requirements that make exporting to the EU increasingly challenging.
“The Pet Industry Federation is really pleased to have worked alongside DHL Supply Chain and Associated Veterinary Services to develop a range of potential solutions which we believe will enable the UK pet industry to get exporting again.”
