With representatives from 25 countries already confirmed to date, visitors to the second edition of Malmö’s healthy living trade event—Natural Products Scandinavia, taking place this October 20 and 21 in Sweden—will benefit from the show’s biggest choice of international exhibitors yet.

Previous host of the Eurovision Song Contest in May, Malmö is certainly no stranger to international attention. And this year’s Natural Products Scandinavia (together with its new, co-located, sister event Nordic Organic Food Fair), looks set to bring thousands of attendees (visitors and exhibitors) from across Scandinavia, Europe, and beyond, back to Sweden's first Fairtrade City. For two action-packed days this October, MalmöMassän’s halls will be buzzing with business as the Nordic region’s only dedicated trade event for the health living, beauty, nutrition and self care sectors presents a vibrant showcase of their latest compositions—the best new natural and organic products to hit the market.

Finland’s Nordic Health Sprays, Sweden’s Biofood, Portugal’s Tetriberica SA – Acushia Oil, and Ingennus, Mycology Research Laboratories, Aduna, and Herbal Veda from the UK are just a few of the latest companies to join the award-winning show’s exhibitor list this month. With new bookings coming in almost daily, the event is firmly on course to hit its target of 190+ exhibitors (up 10 percent from 2012) well before doors open in 12 weeks time (exhibition space is currently at around 90 percent sold out).

Originally devised as a way to encourage internal trading amongst the Nordic countries, feedback from last year’s founding exhibitors (65 percent of whom rebooked for 2013) illustrate that the show not only did just that but also helped many international companies to break into the Scandinavian market for the first time (and vice versa).

“A show like this has been missing for many years, and it’s great that we now have this in the Nordic region,” comments Anders Lindqvist from Sweden’s Great Earth Scandinavian AB.

“Natural Products Scandinavia 2012 really turned out to be exactly what we had hoped for—and even more,” agrees Pia Löfvenmark, sales manager at HKC Egenvård AB, “it was a great opportunity for us to develop lots of new contacts—as well as to reconnect with established ones.”

“Higher Living Teas did not have any distributors from the Nordic region before exhibiting at Natural Products Scandinavia.  But due to the success of last year’s show not only did we find a distributor—we had a choice from many different countries!” says Keith Garden, managing director of Only Natural (Higher Living and Dr Stuarts), explaining how Scandinavia quickly became a key part of the UK-based company’s “international growth strategy.”

“We now have distributors in every region,” he adds, “with a steady flow of orders from all the key health/natural retailers in each country.”

Scandinavian retailers and buyers looking to discover a wealth of innovative business opportunities of their own will find plenty of new product developments for their customers at this year’s show.  The 2013 exhibitors list, which is available to view (and search) online at onlineexhibitormanual.com/divNPS13/exhi/exhibitorList.aspx, features a healthy mix of big industry names—plus, of course, a host of first time exhibitors.