"Alnatura is a social experiment"

Bees are buzzing and frogs are croaking in the grounds of the nature-based headquarters of Alnatura in Bickenbach (Hesse). And in the building belonging to one of the biggest organic companies in Germany there is much activity too. This where the  “working partnership“ develops ideas for new brand products, a 3D online shop and concepts for the store of the future. Founder Götz Rehn sees this collective activity as an “experiment on the way to a  social-organic model company“.

Garden of the headquarter of Alnatura. Photo Karin Heinze

His understanding of business is wanting to be enagaged in activity for other people. The other people are the customers – the raison d'être of the enterprise. “Customer orientation should be the yardstick with which we measure everything we do,“ says Götz Rehn. “This is why we're always guided in our decisions about our product range by what our customers expect in terms of the quality of our brand.“ His credo: in business, it's all about facilitating meaningful developments. He maintains that the customers are the employers and the financers of his company, “the working partnership Alnatura“, as he likes to call it.

Attributes of a genuine brand

In the view of Rehn, what a producer of brand products needs above all else is to be innovative. If a retailer includes brand articles in his product range, he must be able to register a benefit and added value.  So the aim of innovative product development must be articles “that are different from anything before. It's much more a question of  anticipating what could be coming down the line.“ As he pointed out, more and more products were being created with this in mind but he added that Alnatura did not intend to commit itself to a single type of nutrition. “We've got around two dozen vegan products in the Alnatura range, but we're also introducing new meat products. Because when you know how organic farming operates, you can't simply exclude animals.“

Bee hives in the company´s garden. A Demeter-beekeeper helps the Alnatura team. Photo Karin Heinze 

Forwards to the future

How will trade develop? The Bickenbach company is thinking deeply about these issues. Without doubt, the trade is undergoing a huge transformation on account of digitisation, says  Rehn. Services in both the online trade and the bricks-and-mortar trade have to redefined. “If you stay as you are you will have to close down in a very foreseeable time-scale.“ Rehn is thinking here above all of the virtual platform on the internet. “In the online business too we've got to ensure our customers stay enthusiastic.“

As he sees it, that can't be done with the systems currently in place. This why the firm's own IT department is working, with the help of outside partners, on finding the right solutions.“We've created a separate section where peopole work who are capable of 4D thinking.“ But, as he points out, they still have to move forward a number of stages. Nevertheless, from the summer customers can go on a virtual tour of a 3D shop and will be able to get a three dimensional view of products.

.According to Rehn, the outcome of their online activities so far is not bad: Alnatura's online trade has gone beyond what they planned. However, he finds that they have not reached the magnitude that would be possible “if we could get it right“. So, from Rehn's perspective, there's still some way to go.

Colorful and with much paintings at the walls which are inspired by Anthroposophy. Photo Karin Heinze

Working partnership Alnatura – a social-organic  company

“We're in a transformation process regarding the management of the company too,“ says  Rehn. Most of what we've been familar with so far, “a traditional, hierarchical organisation and managment, rigid division of labour“, won't work in the future. There are two reasons for this: “People are now more interested in taking responsibility in keeping with the aims of the company as a whole. Our total activity should have a purpose, and they themselves want to be a part of this development.“ But, he points out, this is not easy to achieve. Because there's also a limitation within consistent division of labour: participating and taking on responsibility has consequences and  you cannot get a complete overview.

Rehn is impressed by the rapidly growing internet corporations like Google, Facebook and Alibaba. “Look at the speed these young companies operate at and what management models they have,“ Rehn explains. Alibaba calls it the “self-optimizing“ organisation. Rehn finds that a pretty good description.“We prefer to speak of a social-organic enterprise. That means the company is regarded as a living organism that changes constantly and not as an organisation with a rigid hierarchy. The actual challenge in all this is learning from each other and reacting appropriately and rapidly to changes in the market. “That's a field of development that we'll probably be preoccupied with  for as long as the company exists,“ says Rehn.

The employees of Alnatura. Photo Karin Heinze

Getting rid of obstacles to market development

Alnatura is an active enterprise. People taking the initiative is much in evidence. For example, two years ago the Alnatura Bio Bauern Initiative (ABBI, Alnatura Organic Farmers Initiative)  was founded – a long-term project to remedy the fact that too few farmers were converting to organic and that demand for organic products had for years been growing more robustly than supply. “There's little sense  on the one hand in pushing sales by means of new shops  and attractive offers and, on the other, in not ensuring there is a sufficiet supply of goods and that organic farmers have the opportunity of a secure livelihood.,“ Rehn explains. ABBI is intended to motivate farmers to enagage in organic farming and to support them in converting to organic and marketing their products. 

The garden in Bickenbach and the building. Photo Karin Heinze

Twenty-five farms are currently being converted (3,600 ha), and the first products from these projects are now on the market. New farms are applying every year and a selection committee led by Prof. Vogtmann under the auspices of NABU chooses the farms most worthy of support. Alnatura has launched other intiatives, a move aimed at signalling the need for more organic production.

Mr. Götz Rehn in the garden in front of the pond. Photo Karin Heinze

Alnatura's objective with its own projects is to strengthen the organic food economy. As explained above, two years ago the company founded the Alnatura Bio Bauern Initiative (ABBI) – a long-term project to induce more farmers to convert to organic. Mobile hen houses are another initiative. Three of them stand in the eco village Brodowin. Four eggs from this production method are sold locally for €2.19. Near  Hamburg a similar initiative is being set up with the dual-purpose breed Les Bleus, whose the male chicks are also raised. “When we explain something  to customers by means of a concrete example, we can sell goods at a higher price,“ says Rehn.

Boxes to feel things inside: a field of experience in the lobby. Photo Karin Heinze

Other examples are the warehouse built with indigenous timber in Lorsch and the planned Alnatura Campus in Darmstadt using clay in the construction. “Projects like these always involve a certain amount of  risk and it takes courage to do things that have not been done before.“ He says their mission is not only to operate organically but to do business meaningfully and to be sustainable on all levels . In contrast to retailers and manufacturers working with a traditional business model, Alnatura's endeavour is more a social experiment, a model company for “doing business differently“.

Rehn is apprehensive: “If we no longer have these unusual innovations and as a society we concentrate only on preserving, stabilising and retaining what already exists, then we'll face difficulties. For me, business means not always doing the same thing but doing what is necessary.“ And he sees the job of an organic entrepreneur as making oirganic products available to a greater number of people.

The first Alnatura Corporate design 30 years ago. Photo Karin Heinze