UK companies exhibiting at international shows like last week's Zoomark are reaping the rewards as a growing number of international buyers are queuing up to 'Buy British'.

Pet food and accessories made in the UK are highly prized in mainland Europe and beyond, and despite the current economic gloom companies are taking advantage of this overseas interest.

Twenty UK-based companies took advantage of the PetQuip-arranged British Pavilion at Zoomark and over the four days of the exhibition they experienced a tremendous amount of interest from visitors.

"Those companies taking part in the British Pavilion had a tremendous exhibition," said Pat Flynn, of PetQuip. "The quality of visitors to their stands was excellent, and a great deal of interest was shown in their products. I'm confident a lot of those inquiries will be turned into firm orders."

"On the PetQuip stand we had inquiries from Russia, the Ukraine, Scandinavia and the Baltic countries."

One of the main aims for the team at PetQuip is the promotion of trade between buyers and suppliers.

When exhibiting at overseas trade shows, there is always a team from PetQuip to help buyers liaise with the suppliers or to simply provide any information which a buyer may need when sourcing new suppliers from the UK.



"We have never had a show like Zoomark," said Eddie Milbourne, of Symply Pet Foods (pictured above). "We had interest from around the world.

"We were so delighted with the support and arrangements made by PetQuip, we even took them out for dinner! Now nobody does that. Ha-ha!"

And Martin Breen, who attended the show with his Group 55 colleague Stephen Turner (pictured left), said: "We had another really good show at Zoomark. We were extremely busy throughout and met buyers from a wide range of places.

"We only launched Animology three years ago at Interzoo 2010, but our export progress since then had meant that this show was as much about us meeting up with existing overseas customers as it was about finding new ones.

"The quality of the enquiries we received at Zoomark was generally very high, and we expect to do considerable new business as a result of the show – we’ll certainly be back next time."