Vegetarian organic supermarket in southern Sweden

Dan Stielow-Mortazavi is thrilled: “In the next few weeks a juice bar with bistro is going to make the shop look a lot more attractive and we’ll open it on 1st August 2008.” The 44-year old newcomer is a convert from the music industry who has turned his passion into his profession. Since April 2007, he has been running a vegetarian organic supermarket with 350 m² of retail space on the south side of the city centre in Malmö.

Picture: The monkey in the photo is a symbol of a vegetarian diet

“It was mainly right at the beginning that people kept on asking why we didn’t sell any meat or sausage products.” By now, most of the roughly 200 customers shopping there on an average day know the answer.  “We want to reduce our impact on the world’s climate and to protect the rights of animals,” is how Dan Stielow (picture) summarises his standpoint. For health and ethical reasons, he has been a vegetarian for four years and a vegan for the last three (no milk products, eggs and other animal products like gelatine and cochineal that is used as a red dye).

“Since what I could buy was pretty limited, and since I was planning a career change anyway, some friends and I developed the idea for this modern organic supermarket.” A large part of the finance was provided by his business partner, who runs a Waldorf kindergarten in Copenhagen that lies just 25 km from Malmö across the Øresund Strait.  He used to live in Copenhagen himself before coming to Sweden in 2004.
(Picture: A little soft toy monkey hanging on the cosmetics shelves)

Dan Stielow and his partner Lisabet Landgren, who also works in the store, are convinced that the number of vegetarians and vegans is rising. They said that people were discussing it much more in public now, and his store was being mentioned much more often in the media. They didn’t have targeted marketing, but they did distribute flyers at events and various places to make potential customers aware of what was available. Dan Stielow thinks the most effective way of attracting new customers is through word of mouth.

Customers can buy an eye-catching shopping bag that was hand-sewn by a tailor in Malmö. The durable, green-patterned bag with a little monkey and the words “Astrid och aporna” draws attention to the name of the shop “Astrid and the Monkeys” – a fantasy name that leaves customers wondering what it means. Dan Stielow solves the dilemma: “What’s good for monkeys is good for humans too.” Many of the 700 customers with loyalty cards have bought one of the bags costing about 20 Euros instead of the usual 27 Euros. (Picture: A bag hanging on the right behind the counter)

Regular customers with a loyalty card pay considerably less for their shopping. Once the card is issued, you get an introductory discount of 1.3 %. The discount rises in stages when you spend over 2, 500, 5,000 and 10,000 Swedish crowns (268 €, 536 € and 1,072 €). After spending 15,000 crowns (about 1,600 €), the customer reaches the highest level, going from 4 % to 5 % discount. Mr Stielow explains that customers can also get their discount at events held in the city.

His product range consists of around 5000 articles, of which about a third are suitable specifically for vegetarians and vegans. Only a part of this product group is organic. “We have been trying for some time now to explain to a company in Taiwan that we prefer organic products,” explains Dan Stielow. For example, soya products that look exactly like frozen chicken thighs, smoked streaky bacon and uncooked ham (see picture). Of course, “Astrid och aporna” also sells a wide range of products by well known manufacturers like Natumi, Viana/Tofutown, Taifun, Provamel, Ekkogourmet, Bonvita and Redwood.

For customers who want information, a well thought-out system of identification gives precise details about the content and suitability of any particular product. For all kinds of allergy sufferers, this is an Eldorado, because they don’t have to pick up every item, turn it over and study the list of ingredients that is usually in tiny print. Ten different symbols are employed: from “gluten-free”, “does not contain soya, nuts, milk, eggs or honey”, to “C” for conventional and a smiley for “nice-price”. You find the symbols in red on the price label on the shelf (picture on left).

According to a rough estimate by Mr Stielow, 80 % of products are organic, 15 % are “natural” and 5 % are conventional. All the fruit, vegetables, milk and eggs on sale are organic. With only three fruit yoghurts, the range of organic milk products is limited. Fresh milk and milk products are kept together in a roughly 1-metre-wide chilled cabinet with a glass door.

Step by step, they want to extend the vegan range produced both locally and organically. Dan Stielow is currently negotiating with individuals and companies to establish production in the region and, by cooperating with other companies, to improve the supply. “We are also becoming importers, and we are trying to improve market structures,” he explains.

The main suppliers of fresh fruit and vegetables for the vegetarian supermarket are the wholefood wholesalers Raby Biogrönt in Sweden and Solhjulet in Denmark. An organic baker in Malmö supplies semi-baked bread and bakery goods that are finished in the store. “This means our customers get everything absolutely fresh,” Dan Stielow is pleased to report. If you want a pizza for lunch, it comes piping hot and fresh from the pizzeria next door (Picture: Cabinet for keeping pizzas hot).

“We have invested a lot of time and money in customer service – that’s something we think is extremely important today. We want to be at least as good as, but if possible a bit better than conventional stores.”

“We are open all year round,” Dan Stielow tells this visitor, who is amazed and can scarcely believe that the store is not closed even at Christmas and New Year. The usual opening times are 9.00 to 19.00 most weekdays, 9.00 to 20.00 on Fridays, 10.00 to 17.00 on Saturdays and 11.00 to 16.00 on Sundays and public holidays. This means the operators have a store that is open for 63 hours a week.

“I hardly have free time any more,” confesses Dan Stielow, because he is usually the one on duty during weekends and holidays. If he didn’t do it, staff would have to be paid extra. “If I am lucky, I can get to a concert once a month.” However, the workload of 90 hours a week at the outset has got a bit better, he thinks. For comparison: the opening hours of wholefood stores in Germany are usually 44 to 49 hours a week.

Tip:

www.astridochaporna.net
Gustav Möllerst gata 2
Malmö