The Enterprise Europe Network (EEN) helps businesses innovate and grow on an international scale. It is the world’s largest support network for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) with international ambitions.
The Network is active worldwide. It brings together experts from member organisations that are renowned for their excellence in business support.
Member organisations include:
- chambers of commerce and industry,
- regional development organisations,
- innovation agencies,
- universities and research institutes,
- employers' associations.
Teams of Network experts in each member organisation offer personalised services to businesses. We know the local business environment and have contacts for business opportunities worldwide.
Our Sector Groups of experts cover all key economic sectors, from healthcare, agri-food and intelligent energy to fashion and textile. In addition, horizontal topics such as Sustainability and Access2Finance are covered in so-called Thematic Groups.
The Sector Group Agri-Food is the largest Group in terms of EEN members in the network. The Group currently has 101 active members from 28 countries, both EU and third countries.
The group's mandate is twofold: Firstly, to contribute to raising the resilience, sustainability and innovation capacity of SMEs in the sector and secondly, to match the EC policies in the Agri-Food sector with the ecosystem‘s real interests and needs.
The Agri-Food industry is the largest manufacturing sector in Europe, with more than 16 million people employed in almost 600,000 firms, 99.4% of which are SMEs. Thus, SMEs are the backbone of the Agri-Food ecosystem. 99% of food and drink enterprises are SMEs, representing 60% of employment and 78% of SMEs in the food and drink sector are micro enterprises. On average, food retailers are predominantly SMEs, but with important differences across EU member states.
EEN Sector Groups meet twice a year and we are happy to make Anuga FoodTec „their home“ for the upcoming Sector Group Meeting. More than 60 experts will be in Cologne to share knowledge, experiences and best practices. Make sure to come by and meet them!
And because that is not enough, Anuga FoodTec also welcomes a delegation from the Thematic Group "Sustainability" and the network of national contact points in Horizon Europe Cluster 6, Care4Bio. You can also meet these experts at our stand and at a variety of events during the fair!
