Austria: organic manufacturers focus on regional marketing

Sonnentor and Zotter are two Austrian wholefood manufacturers that have made a name for themselves at home and abroad and it's quite possible there will be others too, because the number of organic manufacturers in Austria is growing continuously as the organic share in total food sales rises. According to the marketing agency RollAMA, in 2012 this organic share was 6.5%, but in the first 9 months of 2016 it climbed to 8.1%. For comparison: in 2015 the organic share in Germany was 4.4%.

Best sellers in 2015 were eggs (18%), milk (17%), potatoes (15%) and fresh vegetables (13.4%). According to the RollAMA data  the meat and sausage category is far less developed, accounting for only 2.4% and 1.7% of retail sales. This means that most of the meat production must be sold by the conventional trade.

Zotter – Austria's well known symbol of excellence

Josef Zotter, the founder of the company that bears his name, had a cheeky smile on his face when he said at Bio Austria in November: “I've always looked to see what the majority are up to, and then I've decided to do the opposite.”  Of course, it didn't always work, but often enough to take his company forwards even when it was on the brink of bankruptcy because not all ideas are in the long run economically viable.

Zotter started with pumpkin seed marzipan and hemp chocolate. Today he's wondering if people would be keen on insect chocolate with crickets and cockroaches. For him, his company is “not just a factory that manufactures healthy food.” Instead, from the early days, he created the notion of his products being an experience and so he set up, for example, a chocolate theatre in his shops. At the  company premises in Riegersburg, where the production facilities are located, there's a great deal to be wowed by in the Zotter World of Experience: a tasting tour for adults and children in the chocolate shop theatre, a farm with petting zoo next to the production site and a film about cocoa, gold for the Maya people. A visionary in the world of chocolate, he predicts a golden future for the organic sector. In his opinion, organic will be the mega development in the years ahead.

Milk processing – an important industry for Austria

Especially in Austria's mountain regions pasturing, with the value chain milk, dairy products and cheese, is helping to keep organic agriculture viable. Bio Austria, Austria's biggest organic farmers association, cooperates with 32 dairies, cheese makers and mountain cheese producers. One of these is the cheese maker Plangger in Tyrol, not far from the border town of Kufstein.

Here they produce six types of sliced cheese and a hard cheese, ranging from fenugreek cheese and pepper and cream cheese to mountain and blue cheese. Thousands of wheels of cheese mature for up to a year in a 1,600 m² rock cellar. They produce butter, quark, yogurt, fresh cheese, buttermilk, fresh milk and fruit whey. Milk for around 1000 tonnes of cheese a year comes from 110 organic mountain farmers with fields in the Kaisergebirge mountain range. A special feature at Käserei Plangger is the input of  effective micro-organisms that, as Managing Director Martina Brunner explains, are used both in agriculture and in cleaning the production areas. The idea is to encourage the good, beneficial micro-organisms.

Their products can be bought in their own shop but most is sold via specialist cheese wholesalers, retailers, health food outlets and organic shops. Approximately 60% goes to Germany, with the rest being sold in Austria itself.  A special attraction for customers buying cheese on the spot: stairs lead from the shop to a six square metre glass panel set in the floor that allows you to see the whole cheese storage facility in the rock cellar.

The Käse-Hütten Maria Taferl in the Waldviertel region has concentrated largely on marketing its products via markets and 50 retail outlets. In Maria Taferl, to the west of St. Pölten, the company runs both a farm shop and the storage facility for dispatching and commissioning products for weekly markets. Over 25 years ago, Herta and Karl Stix, together with 16 farmers, founded an association that has in the meantime expanded to 50 members. They are regularly present at 29 markets in Vienna and the region as far as Zwettl in the north of Austria. The product range consists of 6 hard cheeses, 14 sliced cheeses, 7 soft cheeses and four sheep and goat milk cheeses, plus further specialities like noodles, juices, wine and brandy.

Quality is the top priority in the production of alcoholic drinks

The production of brandy is already a not unimportant sector in Austria. There is a wide spectrum of producers, ranging from innovative individuals operating in their garage to fully professional companies. Somewhere in the middle is the Farthofer family firm in Öhling between Linz and St. Pölten. For over 20 years Farthofer has been manufacturing fine brandy, liqueurs and spirits, and the range now consists of  40 products.

A special feature of this organic producer is the fact that the majority of raw materials come from the company's own 50-hectare organic farm. In one orchard they have 12,000 apple and pear trees to produce the heavy juice known as must. Must, that comes mainly from untreated fruit and is refined in the manufacture of juices and  brandy, is so important in this region that it is called the Must Region.

The Farthofer distillery makes the dessert pear wine Mostello using the process for making port wine. They grow elephant grass specifically for heating the distillation boilers. In 2012, owner Josef Farthofer's organic vodka received the Gold Award of the International Wine and Spirit Competition in London for the best best vodka in the world. In November 2016 the distillery received the British Drinks Business Sustainability Award 2016 for spirits. Supplying Germany accounts for around 20% of Farthofer's sales. The organic distillery is represented in another 8 countries, including Singapore. 95 % of its products carry an organic logo and from 2018 the whole product range will be certified organic.

Bread and bakery goods are another important part of the processing industry. The company Bersta in the Waldviertel region is a good example of marketing these products. With its origin in a previous producer-consumer cooperative, it now offers a wide range of 5,000 articles from regional organic farmers. Twice a week 76 types of bread, rolls, cake and other bakery products are collected from 10 organic farmers. They are dispatched mainly to Vienna and the surrounding area and delivered to specialist whole food stores, health food shops and a number of markets. The core product range also includes milk and dairy products, meat and sausage, fruit and vegetables and packaged foods (dry goods).

The approximately 60 farmers supplying the products organised themselves into a cooperative as long ago as 1980. This was later converted into a association. In 1998 sales were transferred to the partnership Stieger & Zottl. The two managing directors Johannes Stieger and Hans Zottl come themselves from organic farms, and the business cooperation functioned so well that in the course of time the association became superfluous.

The Österreichische Bergkräutergenossenschaft is a joint enterprise with 68 organic farmers who have specialised in growing organic herbs and spices. Its headquarters are in Hirschbach in the district called the Mühlviertel to the north of Linz. There the roughly 40 employees operate direct selling  from the factory. They market their products via an extensive sales network focusing on the food trade that includes wholefood shops, health food outlets and World Shops in Austria. You find the products of Bergkräutergenossenschaft in some outlets in Germany too.

220 tonnes of organic herbs are grown and marketed annually. About 30 % of production is sold as raw goods and goes mainly to Germany, France, Switzerland and Italy. Most of what they produce is sent in small packs to the specialist retail trade.

In short, organic processing in Austria is characterised by small-farmer cooperatives and commercial partners of organic farmers. Production and marketing are principally organised on a regional basis in order to to keep the distance goods have to be transported to a minimum and to maintain the added value at a level attractive to farmers and their processors.

Organic manufacturers in Austria as cooperation partners of Bio Austria

http://www.bio-austria.at/bio-partner/partnerliste/