After a 32-year career at the Sweets Global Network, Hans Strohmaier has now moved into retirement. Beginning in 1996 as the Managing Director and later as Board Chairman, he guided the transformation from the original German National Trade Association of ­Confectionery Wholesale and Foreign Trade to the SG as an internationally recognised ­platform for the entire sweets industry. In addition to the core target group comprised of ­ the confectionery industry and trade sector, suppliers also now play an increasingly important role in the association’s work, intensively supported by the trade journal sweets processing.

It‘s often the case that we only ­realise in retrospect the scale of the enormous change that companies, institutions and organisations have undergone over the years. When Hans Strohmaier took over the reins of the German National Trade Association of Confectionery Wholesale and Foreign Trade in December 1996 from his prede­cessor Heiner Ernst, the SG – as the ­association was commonly known – was going through a truly precarious phase. We must bear in mind that in the 1950s, Germany had roughly over 2,000 con­fectionery wholesalers who had formed the core group of the asso­ciation for a long time. By the end of the 1990s, not many of them were left. Following the merger of Lekkerland and Sügro, only a few dozen family-owned-&-operated companies were still active alongside the dominant convenience specialist. Together with the importers who made up the association‘s second supporting pillar, the number of member companies continuously sank to a low of 110 com­panies at that time.

It was from this point that SG‘s ”journey” with Hans Strohmaier began with the clear mission of opening up the entire industry taking and adopting a more international orientation. Strohmaier recalls, “Without the unreserved support of the Board at that time with Lothar Kempermann, Dr Udo Gyllensvärd and Stefan Pfander, this would not have been possible in the first two years.” Dr Gyllensvärd managed the con­nections to the wholesalers for the new MD, Mr Kempermann opened the doors to retail. And Mr Pfander, head of Wrigley‘s European business, ­mediated the initial contacts in the ­international confectionery world.

Over the years, the now widely known Sweets Global Network platform for information exchange and commu­nication has developed with contacts all over the world, a current membership of more than 300 member ­companies and over 50 sponsoring members from the supplier sector. The association offers a wealth of high-quality events such as the International Confectionery Congress in Berlin, which recently welcomed more than 550 participants from over ten countries, including a large number of decision-makers from the fields of ingredients, technology, logistics, quality assurance, and packaging. Mr Strohmaier was espe­cially pleased that almost one-third of the congress sponsors were from the supplier sector.

Given all of this, none of it was ­actually planned in the beginning. It had meanwhile become in character for the head of the association and his team that they were open to new ideas. Mr Strohmaier recalls, ”It was Wolfgang Bahmann, the Managing Director of Rotopack GmbH, who asked me in 1999 if we could also ­publish an article in the SG Magazine about packaging. It was highly unusual at the time, but I agreed, and from this idea a largescale network developed across every segment of the supplier industry. Shortly thereafter, M-real Sales Director Manfred Aumann also joined in and pushed the contact in his role as the CEO of Pro Carton ­Germany. Many others followed, including the very early addition of GNT Europe owner Dr-Ing Horst Hoeck, who received the SG Golden Watch in 2017 for his merits and contribution to the confectionery business.”

The renaming from the Federal ­Association of Con­fectionery Wholesale and Foreign Trade to Sweets Global Network in 2004 was therefore a logical step along to road to the ­association‘s size today. In order to better reflect the interests of the ­supplier spectrum, in 2011 the SG launched the magazine, “sweets processing”, the international magazine for the con­fectionery industry, featuring articles on everything from raw materials to production processes, technol­ogies and on up to packaging machinery and packaging materials.

With the service for the Club of Confectioners (CdC), the SG has ­focused since 2017 on the entire ­added value chain – from the field to the shelf in retail and specialised trade. In 2010, the SÜSSER STERN (”Sweet Star”) competition was in­augurated to honour the best con­fectionery departments and speciality shops in Germany, Austria and Switzerland each year. The SG head has always had an open ear for the concerns of manufacturers, distributors, retailers supply companies, and many others. With his mediation skills, he has also contributed to the fact that today‘s confectionery departments at many retail markets enjoy their ­own special place in the respective ­retailer‘s marketing concept.

One of Strohmaier‘s other passions has been the ISM and his work in the AISM working group. Here again, he has been an integral player in the initiatives that resulted in the emergence of the ProSweets Cologne trade fair, and he has applied his experience from the standpoint of confectionery manufacturers in the ProSweets ­working group. He has travelled untiringly to strengthen the reputation of confectionery business and also the position of the trade fairs domestic­ally and abroad. From the former Sweets Middle East fair, now known as the ISM Middle East in Dubai, to journeys to Sweets China – powered by ISM in Shanghai and Beijing, or most ­recently to the ISM Japan fair, the ­association head has never passed on a trade fair event. He also saw it as a matter of course to also always attend other specialist trade fairs. This heartfelt conviction meant that from 1998 to 2023 he attended every one of the All Candy Expo or later Sweets & Snacks Expos – with one exception.

When asked how all this was ­possible, Mr Strohmaier replied, “On every trip I met nice people and interesting entrepreneurs and managers. This has resulted in very friendly contacts all over the world, which have been reinforced with each trade fair visit.” These friendly contacts were ­ultimately also the basis for numerous exciting group trips. Personal encounters with company owners have ­always been staple components of each trip, e.g. the hospitality of the Meyerfreund family, the founders of the Brazilian company Garoto, or Younes Zhaeleh, the owner of Shirin Asal, Iran‘s largest food products manufacturer.

Born in Lower Bavaria to a bakery family, Mr. Strohmaier has always ­travelled far and wide to raise the SG‘s profile, and he has always returned home with new reports. The travels have almost included tours of the ­production facilities, so it‘s unlikely that anyone else has viewed as many plants around the world as Hans Strohmaier, be it in Europe and North America, Brazil, Argentina, Cuba, ­China, Japan, be it in Moscow, Kyiv or Tabriz. “I spent over 150 days a year travelling, and I‘ve certainly seen something upwards of a thousand factories in the world,” he explained at the glamorous farewell held for him during the SG Spring Gala in Munich.