As demand increases for organic vegetables in Sweden, conventional and organic vegetable producer, Marianne's Farm, is waiting for the growth to catch up with them.
"We have made a conscious effort to become bigger and better in our organic products and packaging, but we are waiting for the market to grow with us. Our goal is to become a more environmentally friendly company. We started with organics back in 1992 and have seen fantastic growth." shared Managing Director, Marianne Härning-Nilsson.
Marianne estimates that 60% of their current production is organic, grown over 550 acres, with traditional vegetables taking the remaining 35% with approximately 20 hectares.
Making the switch from conventional to organic is not an easy one and Marianne stressed that the transition needs to be well planned, with good crop rotation. The company is looking into expanding their organic operations, however, this is not a simple task, with limited land for organics and the land which is available comes at a very high price. It is a balancing act, finding the best crops for good returns and they have added additional vegetables to their offering with this in mind.
"We offer regular, commercial, conventional peeled and unpeeled carrots in cello packs, along with peeled organic carrots in cello packs, which carry the KRAV label, This goes a step further than the EU organic label. Along with the carrots, we also offer root celery, red beets, yellow beets, purple beets and onions with the KRAV label." said Marianne.
Their primary market is Swedish retailers, but they also package their baby carrots for private labels for many of their customers who supply to major fast food chains.
Busy lifestyles boosts fresh-cut demand
Marianne said that peeled products are really popular right now, the cities in Sweden are really going in organics, the demand for their products for food service is really booming.
"Although it is still a smaller part of our offering, we have noticed increased demand for cut and peeled carrots, baby carrots, shredded carrots, mixes of different root vegetables. We are also offering these products for meal boxes. With more and more Swedish woman working full time, there is increased demand for weekly meal boxes order to save time when cooking, but still eat healthily. The boxes tend to be expensive, so the biggest target group are 30 something's living in urban affluent areas."
Using nature for cold storage
The carrots are grown from April to late October, or even as late as November, weather permitting. After that, products are sent to the cold stores so they can be sold in February to April when the prices improve.
Storage is difficult for organic products because they are more prone to fungus, so many of the organic carrots are left in the ground covered with a half a metre of hay to make sure that they do not get too cold in the winter months.
"There are big still big risks involved in storing the carrots under the ground because they are a high value product being stored outside and can still be damaged by the weather, especially if there are heavy cold winds of -10 coming from the East that persist for a few weeks." said Marianne.
Still, despite the risks, what could be more organic than using mother nature for cold storage?
