Adamah: Achieving success with subscription box scheme

The organic farm and box scheme business Adamah in the Marchfeld region to the east of Vienna is on the way to becoming Austria’s most successful organic home delivery service. The multi-faceted company uses a number of channels to market its products. At the same time, Adamah is a big family business you feel close to - transparent and with a human dimension. Gerhard and Sigrid Zoubek, working together with the Adamah team, are always coming up with new ideas to retain their customers, gain new ones and put their key strategic principles into practice, which is “to boost direct marketing by farmers and to raise the appreciation of food.”

A photographer for the Kronen Zeitung spends half a day getting to know Adamah and capturing its various attractions on camera, because they want pictures of this flagship farm to accompany a series of articles about organics in Austria’s biggest newspaper. The idea stems from daughter Elisabeth Zoubek - “Picknicking in the Adamah Garden” is the centrepiece of the photo shoots. A customer family poses with the pretty picnic basket on the lawn near the herb garden behind the big barn. Prior to the picnic, the basket is filled in the farm shop. The idea behind it all: families from the nearby big city of Vienna become familiar with Adamah, country life and organic products. If they are won over by the concept and the products, they can have an organic box delivered to their home every week. (Picture: Picnic basket for customers)

(Pictures from the left: plant market and farm shop, house garden, Elmar Fischer-Neuberger, Elisabeth, Gerhard and Sigrid Zoubek)
 

Adamah started its delivery service in 2001, and in those days they supplied 70 boxes a week. Today, the number is between 5,500 and 5,900 organic boxes that are transported in 17 small vans from the farm in Glinzendorf to the capital. The outskirts of Vienna are 15 km away. Customers can choose from ten different boxes ranging from a variety of fruit and vegetables, the mother and child selection and the regional box  to the juice box. As well as ordering from the standard product ranges, customers can select other packs (sausage, meat, sausage + cheese), and they can also order individual products from a total range of around 1000 items. (Picture: Up to 1000 boxes are packed every day)
 

“Individual orders are becoming increasingly important,” says Ekkehard Lughofer. He works in the team that is permanently upgrading the webshop offer orders online. Since the webshop was set up, customers’ individual requests for products have risen by 50 % and now account for about 40 % of the total orders. That’s a challenge for both the logistics and the team that packs the crates with the aid of a computer (program Bio Deliver of Bits&Bytes). The price of fuel is a challenge too, especially as their slogan has always been
“Organics delivered free of charge”. “At some point in the future we probably won’t be able to avoid charging for delivery,” says Lughofer. They’re holding a new slogan in readiness: “Organics direct to your home”. (Picture: New delivery van with a current slogan)
 

“Organic products with biography” is the motto of Adamah. The 90 ha farm produces fine and field vegetables, potatoes and cereals. Moreover, Gerhard Zoubek tries to include as many regional organic farms in marketing via boxes and market stalls. This is in keeping with his desire to strengthen direct marketing and with his concept of fair cooperation in regional networks. “We see ourselves as the hub for small-scale agriculture,” is how Zoubek describes this concept. Adamah cooperates with around 200 regional partners in a 300 kilometre radius. Zoubek also has personal contact with suppliers in Italy, Bulgaria and even Nepal (OneWorld Demeter-Farm). (Picture: Some of the products for the box scheme produced at Adamah farm – here tomatoes in a polytunnel)
 

Adamah farm contributes a high proportion not only of the fresh produce for the organic boxes but also of the full product range that can be ordered or is available on market stalls or in the farm shop. The herb garden supplies the basis of herb teas, culinary herbs, herb and flower salts and pestos. The Adamah brand, a total of around 50 products, also stands for special oils and herb vinegars. The organic bakery Waldherr in the Burgenland processes some of the cereals into bread and pastries that are sold in the farm shop and via the box scheme. (Picture: The Adamah brand consists of around 50 products)
 

Other arms of the business that contribute to the total turnover of about 6 million euros are stalls at 13 weekly markets in Vienna and the vicinity, supplying schools and kindergartens and a catering service. The “cunning school box” is a project that Ekkehard Lughofer is particularly keen on but which also means a lot of input. In the context of an EU school fruit project, that is co-financed by Agrarmarkt Austria Marketing (AMA), Adamah supplies 120 schools with organic boxes whose contents can be chosen on an individual basis. In addition, five schools have midday meals delivered by Adamah. In order to extend this offer and to raise the level of profitability, they are currently looking for suitable large-scale kitchen facilities so that they can bring together the school food and catering arms of the business. They are already in contact with two professional chefs. (Picture from left: Good cooperation: market developer Ralph Liebing (FiBL, ORA) and Elmar Fischer, who coordinates weekly markets and excursions to farms)
 

This by no means exhausts the broad portfolio of Adamah’s activities. The picnic mentioned above is supplemented by celebrating children’s birthdays on the farm. Sigrid Zoubek and her daughter Elisabeth and their team also offer guided herb tours and cookery courses. Farm parties and plant markets are an obligatory part of the programme throughout the year. One of the newer projects is yoga in the garden. You can be quite sure they’ll come up with more creative ideas.

Among all these activities, we mustn’t forget the solar electricity initiative that is especially dear to Gerhard Zoubek. Since 2010, Adamah has been offering customers the opportunity to  invest in the photovoltaic installations at the farm. The farm pays out the return on the investment in the form of vouchers for buying Adamah’s organic food. Two smaller and one bigger photovoltaic facility producing a total 52 kWp have been installed in the last couple of years. The most recent project is the on-farm charging point and an electric vehicle. (Picture on left: Creative team of mother and daughter Zoubek; picture on right: Gerhard Zoubek)
 

Adamah maintains intensive communication with its customers about its promotion of sustainability and life on the farm, using leaflets, a farm newspaper, its homepage and Facebook to keep people up-to-date with what’s going on. The Zoubeks regard it as an important task to raise consumers’ awareness of organic agriculture, to explain how it all works and in general to make people more appreciative of organic food. The name Adamah embodies the mission in Glinzendorf. The word is Hebrew and means both humankind and the soil and living earth. “A name that expresses very well everything we do and accomplish here, our vision of a sustainable lifestyle and operational style,” is how it is explained in a leaflet about the farm. (Picture: Charging point and an e-car are co-financed by customers)