Future foods under time pressure
Food Bornholm focuses on pulses and a plant-based protein-rich diet.
Right now, an exciting food project is taking place in the fields of Bornholm, where 15 local producers have joined forces to produce plant-based foods – both organic and conventional. Food Bornholm combines business, innovation and research with the ambition to deliver the green foods of the future from farm to fork.
Primarily sales to major cities
Food Bornholm's product range includes various types of lentils, quinoa and chickpeas.
”It is, after all, an attempt to run agricultural production geared towards the future. More and fewer are waking up to plant-based diets, says Christian Møller Holm, who is the chairman of Food Bornholm.
However, sales currently have a few hot spots, he explains.
”We don't sell very much on Bornholm. People in rural areas are less ready for the idea of a plant-based diet than people in the cities are. It is definitely the cities that are our market right now.”
Travel-loving Danes who have visited Spain and southern France will have come across many dishes in which lentils play a part. The same is true not least of Indian food, which is enjoying widespread success across large parts of the world as a favourite takeaway, but in Europe generally the lentil is fighting an uphill battle. Less than four percent of the world's lentil production takes place in Europe, now including a small share on Bornholm.
”The lentil is a small product with a big future, which is rich in protein and eaten by many people all over the world. For Denmark, it is a product of the future that we must learn to embrace. That takes time, we know that, but we can see the demand starting to emerge little by little.”
We don't sell very much on Bornholm. People in outlying areas are less ready for the idea of a plant-based diet than people in the cities are. It is clearly the cities that are our market right now.
Patience tested
None of the 15 farmers involved are making money from the project yet. They are allocating land for the cultivation of pulses, they are spending working hours, but are not yet reaping any income from it.
”We still have patience, and know that that is how it is with many start-up projects. We have also received LAG funding, but that doesn't change the fact that now, in year three, we still have no income from it. That's not going to continue, he explains.
Another challenge is unpredictable factors such as wind and weather, as well as supply and demand.
”We cannot control the weather. That is why we have had three different kinds of harvest in the time we have been operating. That is just how it is. But if demand rises, we need to be able to react, and it takes us a year to make changes if more land needs to be allocated to one product or another. Therefore, it is also super important that we can see that it makes economic sense in both the short and the long term, says Christian Møller Holm.
From Bornholm to the rest of Denmark
”Growing pulses is one thing. Cleaning and bagging them is quite another. We used to have that done elsewhere in the country, but now we do it ourselves to keep an eye on the process and ensure quality. Once the packing is finished, the final product is sent off to wholesalers across the country,” he says.
”For us, export right now is the rest of Denmark. We dream of foreign markets in the long run, but here and now it's all about the Danish market, where companies like Meyers Madhus are among the buyers of our products,” says Christian Møller Holm.
The limitations of ecology
It is nothing new that there is a customer segment in Denmark that thinks green. In fact, the green mindset is so deeply rooted in parts of the consumer base that they can be difficult to shift. In Denmark, after all, there is an understanding that ’completely’ green products are exclusively organic. This poses challenges for the 15 producers from Bornholm.
”All the organic produce we make, we can sell without any problems. The problem is that we have many conventional
farmed products which, despite very high quality, have a somewhat harder time selling. We have some very off-putting rules on organics in Denmark that do not always make sense, as they often penalise really good conventional production and hinder its development. Despite high quality, consumers reject them solely because they lack the organic label. Instead, they prefer foreign organics regardless of differing organic rules abroad and transport, rather than sustainable Danish conventionally produced products,” he says, continuing:
”So we need to move and develop our business, but the driving force shouldn't just come from us, but also from consumers. Firstly, they ideally need to demand more products like ours, but also understand that conventionally grown pulses can be more than good enough,” concludes Christian Møller Holm.
BY SØREN SORGENFRI