The Organic Traveller
Saturday, 25 November 2023

Heidelberg: Zero Waste

For (re-)filling your kitchen cupboard and shop for un(pre)packaged food head straight to the northern shore of the Neckar river, to the Neuenheimer Markt market place. On Wednesday mornings (until 1 pm) a farmer's market is held here, but a few steps away you will also find the city's only package-free supermarket dubbed Annas Unverpacktes ("Anna's unwrapped goods") which with its outer wall made of turquoise tiles looks like a converted butcher's shop from the outside. As all zero waste convenience stores I've come across so far it's strictly vegetarian, but omnivores simply walk outside and turn left to find an artisanal butcher's shop at the next corner.

Annas Unverpacktes

Until some years ago the Metzgerei Blatt was working according to the Neuland principles of animal welfare in meat production which are close to, but not fully organic, and in 2015 turned to fully organic principles. The shop was closed when I went there (as it's generally closed on Wednesday afternoons), but the owner assured me that the staff would fill my purchase into my own clean boxes as long as they were intended for personal consumation (instead of catering a bigger crowd). Ready-to-eat meat dishes are also available to take away.

Directly opposite the Neuenburger Markt there's also a shop of the local wholefood bakery Mahlzahn named after the dragon in Michael Ende's famous children's novel "Jim Button and Luke the Engine Driver". Here the shop assistants will happily put your bread, rolls, sweet and savoury pastries into the bags or containers you present.

Vollwertbäckerei Mahlzahl Weststadt

The bakery workshop itself is located in the Weststadt neighbourhood where you also can buy a small selection of loose-weight seasonal fruit and veges and assorted pre-packaged organic food items to supplement your breakfast, lunch or coffee table. When I went there in hope for an early organic breakfast it however turned out that this bakery doesn't follow the zeitgeist to serve coffee and snacks to eat on the spot everywhere -- no coffee machine here, no bar tables. (The rolls were delicious nevertheless.) Mind you that this bakery does not use white flour at all.

Altogether there are four Mahlzahn shops, all with identical opening hours, the third one located in the neighbourhood of Rohrbach, and the fourth in Handschuhsheim (literally: "glove's home").

In general you will have difficulties to find organic bakeries not willing to fill customer-provided clean bags and boxes, and the new (in 2023) Zeit für Brot shop thankfully make no exception.

To buy all items for a zero waste breakfast at one stop head for the city's branch of the Denn's organic supermarket chain: The staff at its meat, dairy and bakery counters offers to fill cheese, cured meat products, sausages and bakery items into your containers. If you buy a coffee drink on the go in your own cup you'll receive a 30 cents discount, and you can also buy lunch to take away in your own jars instead of having it at the self-service bistro.

The other nationwide operating organic supermarket brand, Alnatura, operates three branches in town. They do not have a dedicated focus on zero waste, but there's a slowly increasing assortment of food in returnable glasses (e.g. mayonnaise, "canned" corn and other preserves, or vegetable spread) apart from unpackaged fruits, vegetables, and bakery produce. Unfortunately you must be familiar with the glass types to find them, and they are always among the most expensive options.

If you prefer independent shops the two Fair & Quer supermarkets in the neighbourhoods of Handschuhsheim and Wieblingen are worth a try. Unfortunately I did not have the chance to visit them (as advised by my Mastodonbubble), so I cannot say whether their waste and package reduction measures exceed those of comparable dedicated organic supermarkets in Germany. The shop in Wieblingen offers organic lunch Monday through Friday from noon to 2pm.

Student initiatives

I wasn't much surprised to hear from my Mastodon bubble about zero-waste and repair initiatives run by the university's students' parliament. Unfortunately I have not had the time to visit the campus, but I happily list them here: The self-service bike repair shop Urrmel and the package-free organic food co-operative Appel un' Ei. The latter is located between "Chez Pierre" and "Café Botanik" at the university's main refectory and is regularly offering lunch made with produce from a communal market garden.

Map of all places listed in this article

More to try

Here are a few more shops which I found during my research but didn't manage to visit myself:

Closed

You may still find references to the following organic grocery on the web, but be assured it's no longer there:

2023-11-25 22:30:00 [Heidelberg, organic, vegetarian, zero_waste, unverpackt, cafe, grocery, supermarkets, butcher, lunch, snacks, coffee, bodycare, household] [direct link · table of contents]

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This work by trish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For commercial use contact the author: E-mail · Mastodon · Vero · Ello.

Friday, 24 November 2023

Munich: Chains good enough not to be boycotted

Organic and fair is going mainstream, and you will have to go a long way to find a big food retailer not stocking at least some appropriately labelled items. As long as you avoid the cheapest textile retailers you will also be able to needle-pick organic cotton fig leaves covering up for otherwise not exactly fair, social and environmentally conscious behaviour in many fashion outlets.

So even if you happen to be stranded in darkest suburbia, you will be able to survive somehow. In the Munich metropolitan area however, you have the choice of leaving your money at retailers more conscious than average. Some of them are local chains, others have outlets or franchise takers everywhere in Germany and sometimes even abroad.

Food and necessities

There's a wide range of organic full retailers as well as smaller organic supermarkets, so chances are good that you will find one in your vicinity. Most malls however, with their exchangeable shops and brands, stick to conventional supermarkets, and – here's your choice – a smaller health-food store (Reformhaus), often of the Vitalia chain. Larger and newer branches even offer a coffee or snack bar. Although some stores are up to 80 percent organic, check for organic labels, as up to half of their goods on sale may be conventional.

The DM Drogeriemarkt drugstore chain is being managed according to anthroposophical principles in such a successful manner that new branches have been popping up in almost every newly or re-opened shopping complex during the past years. It has always had a focus on organic and eco-friendly products (alongside the conventional stuff) and is most certainly the reason for that its competitors Müller and Rossmann now also stock a wide range of organic dry food products, sweets and drinks, as well as natural cosmetics. While the big Müller branches stock an impressive selection of natural cosmetics brands and recently stepped in for DM as a reseller of the Alnatura food brand, DM has a broader focus, with a series of eco-friendly household items such as nappies, detergents, dishwasher tabs, or organic cotton pads of the "nature" own-brand alongside the own-brands "DM Bio" (food), and "Alverde" (cosmetics and toiletries). In addition DM branches sell a growing selection of reputable organic and eco cosmetics brands, such as "Weleda", "Lavera", "Sante", "I+M Berlin", "Dr. Bronner" (all products fully natural) or "Eos organic", "Dresdner Essence" and "Kneipp" (watch out for eco labels). Products of the "Alnavit" brand for nutrition and allergene avoiding food and sweets are usually organic, as are the own brand of the vegan supermarket chain Veganz. Since they kicked out Alnatura as their exclusive organic food brand a variety of products by various organic producers has been showing up in the shelves. For detergents stick to products of the "Ecover" and "You" brands. Also a word of warning towards the nature washing detergent: It's labelled with the Blue Angel environmental label, but nonetheless contains synthetic perfumes which accumulate in your clothes.

Thus said: Fresh food aside you will find everything you need for a daily eco-conscious lifestyle. It should however not go unnoticed that DM own brands comply with minimum standards for organic food and natural bodycare only. Food products complying with higher organic standards such as the biodynamic corn products by Alnatura were replaced when the chain rearranged their product selection. DM is said to treat its employees fairly, though this may of course vary with the branch management. And if you are not satisfied with a product (like I was with the washing liquid) or simply bought the wrong one they guarantee that you may return it in any chain store, opened or sealed, even without receipt. I did it, and it always worked like a charm.

If you for various reasons do not like dedicated organic supermarkets but find the search for sustainable and eco-friendly products in conventional supermarkets tedious pay a visit to the shops of the Fulda-based supermarket chain Tegut. The company took over the insolvent Basic supermarkets and converted most branches to predominantly conventional shops.

Lunch, snacks and coffee

The remaining branches of the Basic brand have a self-service coffee and lunch bar, but the entrance area of a supermarket might not be the place for a read or chat while having a coffee.

Munich also has a few branches of the coffee house franchise Black Bean serving exclusively organic coffee. Unfortunately only the coffee itself (and some soft drinks) are organic – no organic milk or pastries. However, since the Maxvorstand branch closed spring 2020 I am not aware of the status of the second branch in Schwabing. Black Bean branches offer free wifi.

Another Munich-based coffee chain franchise has been growing with new openings even during the covid pandemic: Coffee Fellows offer their coffee drinks both, in creamware, returnable Recup coffee cups. The chai latte is fully organic as is all the milk and if you watch out for the "bio" label you will also be able to have an organic softdrink, unfortunately from one-way plastic bottles. This chain has been expanding a lot recently and you will find them preferably in the vicinity of transportation hot spots like train stations, airports, fuel stations and shopping malls.

Interestingly one of the major bakery chains in Munich is an organic one: Hofpfisterei branches will usually sell you organic sandwiches (made of typically German sourdough bread) or pretzl with butter ("Butterbrezn" is not just a children's favourite), but on less frequented locations they may be outsold by early afternoon. In this case you can still buy organic spread (cheese or vegetarian) or sausages along with your breadrolls or opt for a sweet pastry. Most shops offer organic coffee-to-go, mineral water and softdrinks, and the bigger ones usually have a bar table or two. Both, the Hauptbahnhof and the Ostbahnhof train stations have a Hofpfisterei branch, although the latter one is closed on Sundays. An hour before closing Hofpfisterei offers a discount on breads, breadrolls and pastries, and many branches cater for the early bird, often opening at 7am.

For hearty Mexican fast food head for one of the Pureburrito branches.

Clothes

Both, the C&A and H&M fast fashion chains have been extending their range of products made from organic cotton, recycled and eco-friendlier materials in the past years. C&A shops label their sustainable collection clearly visible on the price tag (look out for small hearts and the "Bio Cotton" string), but the product range is restricted to basic items such as t-shirts and underwear, and apart from this unreliable. Kids and teens are better catered for than adults. Since they are only randomly presented together you may find yourself fine-reading labels.

H&M covers a broader range of sustainable products – you will even find the occasional dress for women. But since most of them are made of mixed garments containing not biodegradable plastic fibres and there's no cradle-to-cradle concept they are just better than nothing. Products of the "H&M conscious" brand can be distinguished by their green tag. They are presented together in separate areas, both, within the women, kids, and men stores, and hence easy to find. According to Greenpeace both companies had been taking serious measures to reduce hazardous chemicals in the production process and to introduce fairer production during the 2010ies.

Closed

2023-11-24 22:00:00 [Munich, Schwabing, supermarkets, coffee, snacks, lunch, bakeries, grocery, fashion, bodycare, household, covid, corona] [direct link · table of contents]

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This work by trish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For commercial use contact the author: E-mail · Mastodon · Vero · Ello.

Monday, 20 November 2023

Lisbon: Supermarkets and Zero Waste

The bigger conventional supermarkets seem to have at least a small selection of organic dry food, often conveniently assembled in a dedicated and marked shelf. But while obtaining a package of organic biscuits and tea bags is easy, you may wander a long way without spotting any opportunity to buy fresh fruits and veges, leave alone dairy products.

The organic food department of El Corte Ingles

The first solution which may come to a traveller's mind is the upmarket department store of Sunday-open El Corte Ingles at São Sebastião tube stop. And indeed: In the middle of its food court there's a small organic shop-in-shop area with a separate fridge and a fresh fruits and vegetable section. Here I found the most expensive bottle of UHT milk I've seen so far, at a price tag of about 3.65 euros (fresh organic milk seems to be completely unavailable in Lisbon). Needless to say that the selection of dry food is very upmarket, including organic advent calendars before the Christmas season, so you will easily find a consumable gift, while you may breathe in deeply for the price tag of everyday food.

Good to know: There's a row of gravity bins from which you can fill unpackaged grains and nuts into your own containers, and the uncooled fruits and veges also come without packaging.

Pigmeu da Ribeira

A small selection of shelled nuts as well as extremely tasty olives can be bought by the gram from Pigmeu da Ribeira, an upmarket delicatessen stall located in the central aisle between TimeOut and the traditional market at Mercado da Ribeira. Their main business is to offer a snack of cured meats, cheeses and olives from small-scale organic farms or a sandwich together with a glass of wine, everything extremely tasty and a pleasant alternative to much of the heavy food served in town.

But you can also buy bottles of natural wines, vacuum-packaged cured meat and cheeses, a small selection of preserves and seeds of flowers and vegetables. Everything here is organic, many products even biodynamic, but the price tag is quite heavy: The average bottle of wine goes between 20 and 30 euros, while the wage slip of the shop assistants remains at 800 to 900 euros a month for eight hours shifts.

Miosotis near El Corte Ingles

From one of the people working here I got the crucial information that there is a small chain of 100 percent organic supermarkets in and around Lisbon: Miosotis. One of their branches is only a few steps away from El Corte Ingles, and it is huge. The bakery booth, the fruits and vegetables section and a decent row of gravity bins with dry food support a zero-waste lifestyle. Whether you need body care products of household chemicals, want to buy a bottle of organic port wine, or seasonal sweets, this is the first address to go. They simply have everything organic you need – except for fresh milk.

As its counterparts in much of central Europe the supermarket has a self-serviced cafe cum restaurant offering lunch and snacks. It's however closed in the evening.

If you prefer small crammed health food shops, the Bomercado near Largo do Terreirinho (a mini tram stop of number 12E in the old town) may be for you. Given the size of the shop, the selection of fresh produce is limited, and there are probably more imported products from German organic producers than from Portuguese ones, but you will find both, sufficient food and body care to survive.

Clothes and textiles

Zero waste is not only about the packaging of products to consumate, but also about re-using and up-cycling of long-living goods such as clothes. When I walked the streets of São Antonio/Misericordia I noticed a shop window presenting linen shirts which at once left the impression of being both, comfortable and long-living. I came back to Stró the other day to discover that there was more to it: beautiful caps, scarfs and pillow cushions made from natural fibers only, linen, wool, and cosy cotton jersey. For the scarfs, caps and home textiles traditional re-used fabrics and fibres as well as vintage dead stock fabrics made in Portugal are being used. Given the quality and longevity of these products made by small-scale producers in inner Portugal, they are very reasonably prized, even cheap if you're going to use them for a decade or longer.

There's a second Stró shop almost around the corner, and if you should be unlucky enough to arrive at one of the shops during lunch break, head for its sister shop as their breaks are not overlapping.

Map of all places listed in this article

2023-11-20 21:35:00 [Lisbon, Lisboa, Lissabon, organic, zero_waste, unverpackt, cafe, grocery, supermarkets, deli, market, breakfast, lunch, coffee, snacks, bodycare, household, fashion] [direct link · table of contents]

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This work by trish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For commercial use contact the author: E-mail · Mastodon · Vero · Ello.

Saturday, 18 November 2023

Heidelberg: Sustainable shopping

As a tourist you will most certainly head for the old town, walking down the Hauptstraße ("main street") pedestrian street. While the western part of this street is inhabited by the ever-boring major chains, the eastern part with its small-scale owner-run shops is definitely worth a shopping spree, preferably to enterprises striving to sell sustainable, often fairly traded goods.

Cocooning and body care

Looking for dedicated environment-friendly kitchen and bathroom utensils, toys, fashion accessories, stationary, gifts or design items you must not miss out the green design department store GOODsHOUSE a little west of Schiffsgasse. The shop itself isn't visible from the main street -- walk down a little aisle into the backyard to find a lovingly arranged two-storey shopping paradise. The staff is friendly and helpful, yet not intrusive and will happily offer to order items not in stock.

Wolkenseifen

A few steps further west, at the corner with Heumarkt an equally carefully designed cosmetics boutique dubbed Wolkenseifen ("cloud soaps") is the flagship store of a local near-natural cosmetics manufacturer. In addition you'll find (certified) organic and natural cosmetics brands usually not to be found in your nearest organic supermarket -- among them Chia, Madara, or Khadi --, and a great selection of zero waste body care like hair and body soaps, solid shampoos or solid toothpaste.

Shoes and fashion

Fair and slow fashion seems to be quite strong in Heidelberg where even otherwise conventional clothes boutiques like Bofinger in the main street trade in fair and organic labels like Armedangels. My stay was too short to pay a visit to all the places on my short list, but I managed to have a glimpse inside Tutta Natura selling sustainably produced French shoes and women's clothes for lovers of classic eco-design in the Plöck running parallel with the main street.

November 2018 saw the re-opening of former fair fashion store cum cafe Friedrich as a Glore concept store offering organic fashion for all, women, men and kids as well as a small selection of organic body care.

Fair trade shops

Heidelberg is home to a number of community-driven one-world shops selling fairly traded fashion accessories, household items, dry food, sweets, coffee and tea, the latter often certified organic. One of them is Una Tierra at the market place Neuenheim, another one the Weltladen in the old town with a small cafe, offering fairly traded coffee drinks, cocoa or tea while you crawl the shop or let you inspire by the bookshelf.

More to try

Here's a list of shops which I had on my list for research but didn't manage to visit myself. Let me know about your experience!

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2023-11-18 21:00:00 [Heidelberg, shopping, organic, fair, fashion, spices, herbs, delicatessen, gifts, upcycling, bodycare, coffee, cafe, shoes] [direct link · table of contents]

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This work by trish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For commercial use contact the author: E-mail · Mastodon · Vero · Ello.

Sunday, 05 November 2023

Salzburg: Zero Waste

While buying organic requires only a little extra effort in Salzburg, minimising waste is an entirely different issue. If you wish to carry home your purchases in your own re-usable containers you depend on the cooperation of the shop, which (even in organic supermarkets) can be surprisingly little. The covid-19 pandemics marked the beginning as well as the end of the (to my knowledge) only dedicated organic pay-by-weight grocery, GenussProGramm (a pun which can be translated as both, "pleasure by the gram" or "pleasure program") in the neighbourhood of Andräviertel.

Medousa

So what's left? As in other cities farmers' markets are a good bet: The Medousa market booth at the Grünmarkt opposite Fabi's Frozen Bio Yogurt within Mozart's birthplace offers to fill Italian-style antipasti and other mediterranean and vegetarian delicatessen into your jars, provided you ask for it. Although the market at Grünmarkt is held daily, there are no organic boothes on Mondays and Thursdays; the Medousa booth is here on Saturdays only. On Thursday mornings you can find it at the Schrannenmarkt opposite Mirabell castle.

At the Schrannenmarkt you'll also find the market booth of the Ökoprodukte Feldinger organic farm which in the past used to run a fully organic supermarket in town. The booth is located next to Ändra church.

Offsite tourist tracks but on your way to Hellbrunn castle or zoo you'll find what until spring 2023 was Salzburg's only branch of the organic supermarket chain Basic. Prior to its insolvency this organic retailer had a focus on reducing one-way packaging. While the German Basic supermarkets were bought by the conventional tegut chain, the two Austrian branches (the second one is located in Vienna) will continue as fully organic supermarkets of the Dennree chain.

However, I do not know whether gravity bins with dry food survived here as Denn's has never had a focus on refill. As in most organic supermarkets fruits and veges usually are not pre-packaged, and serviced desks for bakery and dairy products allow you to take home products in your own boxes. There's also a slowly increasing range of products in returnable jars and bottles, but unfortunately these are usually more expensive than their counterparts in one-way packaging.

To refill milk around the clock head for the milk vending machine at the Erentrudishof organic farm in Morzg, a pleasant bike ride from the city. There's also a farmshop, of course with more restricted opening hours, where you also can buy eggs, spelt, wheat and rye produced by the farm.

Artisanal bakeries

When buying bread, rolls, cake or snacks from organic bakeries you should by now no longer meet strange looks when presenting your bag or container. But organic bakeries in town seem to be afraid of advertising themselves as "bio", so it can be difficult to spot them.

The most stylish one of them is the Salzburg branch of Joseph Brot vom Pheinsten with its open baker's workshop a few steps away from the Mönchsberg elevator. Apart from deliciously smelling bread, rolls, cakes and snacks there's a small selection of dairy products, jams and preserves. You can also order organic (coffee) drinks and sit down on a table to have a snack or enjoy their patisserie. The bakery keeps open on Sunday mornings and public holidays.

Elisabethen-based artisanal bakery Pföß has a shop next to the Sternbräu area in the old town. Unfortunately only the bread is promised to be organic, the white rolls tasted bland as if they were made of conventional flour. On the other hand the Krapfen doughnuts were a real delight, crisp and still a little warm, filled with fruity apricot purree instead of oversweet jam. If you come here for a snack stay away from the conventional softdrinks, and you may wish to ask whether the sandwiches are made with organic toppings.

If you want to be sure to get 100 percent organic bakery products, visit the Grünmarkt at Universitätsplatz: Three days a week you'll find the booth of Bio-Bäckerei Itzinger on its Eastern side, near the Ritzerbogen hallway. The bakery also offers vegan bread and rolls and has a focus on wholemeal products. On Thursdays you can find it at the Schranne Biomarkt.

Plastic-free lifestyle

Zero waste starts with the food, but does not end there: In order to reduce the amount of plastics ending up as microplastic in our environment and finally in ourselves it's crucial to reduce the use of the (undoubtedly useful) polymers in general: Don't throw them all away at once (as the biggest part of the carbon footprint of goods is in their production), but replace your plastic household items or clothes with plastic-free alternatives as soon as they are about to degrade.

In Salzburg there's a store to help you with that: Damn Plastic in the Europapark mall in Taxham offers almost the entire range of plastic-free (or recycled) non-food, for inspiration or replacement. Unfortunately their original shop in the inner city does no longer exist.

Map of all places listed in this article

Closed

2023-11-05 18:00:00 [Salzburg, Vienna, organic, vegetarian, zero_waste, unverpackt, cafe, grocery, supermarkets, bakeries, deli, market, breakfast, coffee, snacks, farms, fashion, bodycare, household] [direct link · table of contents]

Creative Commons Licence

This work by trish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. For commercial use contact the author: E-mail · Mastodon · Vero · Ello.