Koelnmesse is folding its trio of sweets and snacks trade fairs into a single umbrella identity, betting that the industry’s innovation cycle has become too interconnected for separate events to serve it well.

From 2027, ISM Ingredients, ISM Manufacturing and ISM Snacks & Sweets will operate under one unified ISM brand, spanning raw materials, production technology and finished retail products. The move formalises a relationship that has already existed in practice for nearly two decades — ISM and ProSweets Cologne, its supplier-focused counterpart launched in 2006, have run concurrently ever since. What changes is the framing: rather than two adjacent events, the portfolio becomes one brand architecture mapped explicitly to the value chain.

One brand

The rebrand reflects a broader argument, not a new one, about how innovation happens in food manufacturing. Koelnmesse’s positioning holds that ingredient development, production technology and go-to-market strategy have become too entangled to be treated as separate trade fair categories — that automation, digitalisation and new ingredient science now shape product development simultaneously rather than sequentially, and that an event structure organised around that reality serves exhibitors better than one organised around legacy categories.

It’s an argument putting forward that ingredient innovation and manufacturing technology are converging — tracks with what’s been visible across the wider F&B sector, from AI-driven formulation tools to modular processing lines built around specific new ingredient classes.

Bastian Mingers, vice president food & food technology at Koelnmesse, framed the change as a response to how the industry now works: the new brand architecture, he said, unites the relevant parts of the value chain in a way intended to sharpen orientation for exhibitors and open up more substantive opportunities for business and exchange.

Three fairs, clearly divided roles

The restructuring assigns each event a defined position along the chain rather than blending them into a single show floor. ISM Ingredients takes raw materials, functional ingredients, flavour and texture, and product development tools. ISM Manufacturing covers mechanical engineering, automation, AI and quality management for production and packaging. ISM Snacks & Sweets — the renamed successor to the original ISM — becomes the finished-goods and retail-facing event, bringing together brands, new products and trading companies.

That renaming pushes the original ISM name down into one of three specialised formats, Koelnmesse is explicit that the historic show now represents only the downstream end of a chain it wants to own in full.

Shared infrastructure — one website, one ticketing system, a unified event app and common networking tools — is designed to make the three formats function as a single planning exercise for visitors, rather than three separate trips.

Sector signals

For manufacturers and ingredient suppliers, the practical test will be whether a shared brand and shared logistics actually translate into more cross-pollination on the ground or whether the three fairs simply run in parallel under a common banner without changing how business gets done. Koelnmesse is wagering that structure shapes behaviour, and that organising trade fair access around the value chain rather than around historic event boundaries will pull those conversations into the same room.

The rebranded ISM, comprising all three formats, runs in Cologne from 31 January to 3 February 2027 — giving the industry roughly 18 months to see whether the new architecture changes how deals actually get made on the show floor.