FRANKFURT (dpa-AFX) - The Ambiente consumer goods fair in Frankfurt has started with a completely booked-out area. At 360,000 square meters, 4928 exhibitors from 170 countries are occupying more space than ever before, the trade fair company reported at the opening of the show this Friday. The figures from the previous year were clearly exceeded. Goods and trends for living, eating, drinking, cooking and giving will be on display until Tuesday (January 30).

New working environments, sustainability and digitalization have been identified as trends. Several design awards will also be presented at the trade fair. The "Plagiarius" prize is aimed at product pirates and contrasts particularly brazen counterfeits with higher-quality original products.

On Friday, the Plagiarius jury blamed Chinese online platforms for a new level of product piracy. Companies such as Temu, Shein, DHgate and AliExpress flooded the global markets with their cheap products - including numerous infringing imitations. Following aggressive advertising on social media, the goods are often delivered without a CE mark and without German-language operating instructions. Return shipping is usually excluded or is more expensive than the cheap product itself.

As an example, the Plagiarius makers presented a special prize "Online marketplace for hyenas", on which an award-winning plastic cutlery set from the Hessian design manufacturer Koziol had landed. On at least four platforms, inferior plagiarisms of the original were repeatedly offered at knock-down prices. The corresponding advertisements were removed from the platform after references to EU-wide design protection, only to reappear the next day at other retailers.

The exhibition shows the counterfeits next to the original products. In the current year, the Volkswagen Group is represented twice as an aggrieved party: With a toy Beetle made of Lego bricks and a gear knob for the Golf. The first prize is for a series of drinking glasses originally designed by the Austrian company Zalto Glas GmbH. The alleged copiers are based in Bavaria. According to the jury, the two companies are battling it out in court.

As in the previous year, the classic spring trade fair was merged with the Christmasworld and Creativeworld events, which still had a separate date before the coronavirus pandemic. Frankfurt's Ambiente is regarded as the world's leading trade fair for consumer goods. Christmasworld and Creativeworld also make this global claim for the themes of Christmas decorations, handicrafts and creativity /ceb/DP/men