Scan Magazine | Mini Theme | Danish and Norwegian Delicacies
Firm principles in Denmark’s pantry Løgismose’s success as an organic food producer is based on sustainability, animal welfare and heavy involvement with its local community on the island of Funen, a traditional stronghold for food producers set for expansion. By Thomas Bech Hansen
“The earth is our child.” Does that sound like the motto of a hippie commune from the 1970s? Think again. These are the words of Steen Aalund Olsen, director of organic food producer Løgismose Meyers Group, and he means business – in 2017 and beyond. The company, based in the small town of Allested-Vejle on the Danish island of Funen, is behind two of Denmark’s bestloved food brands: Løgismose and Meyers. Both brands focus on organic, locally sourced produce that tastes great – the former with roots in French gastronomy, the latter in the Nordic cuisine. “We take something from the earth but also give back,” Olsen explains.
Making the effort Løgismose’s mission is to put joy and proactivity back into local food production 32 | Issue 96 | January 2017
instead of moving to large-scale factories and focusing on the cheapest production methods. “For some, it is all about corn and milking. But differentiated agriculture is coming back with a focus on taking the time to work with breeding processes and animal wellbeing. Organic farming is not only a production form where you refrain from using fertilisers and so on; it is about making the effort to find the right feed, making milk taste better, making meat taste better.” Generally, Olsen’s experience is that consumers are becoming increasingly conscious of quality of taste in a growing number of food categories. Pork, he says, is a telling example. “Take the rise of pulled pork – like the popularity of bacon, the sixth basic taste rose to prominence, which enables us to focus on pigs in terms of breeding, feed,
space, growth speed and their size when slaughtered.”
Local involvement In 2001, Løgismose bought a closed dairy on Midtfyn in Allested-Vejle with a view to building modern facilities. A great deal of new knowledge was generated from working with the local environment, and the municipality helped the company set up in the area from day one. Today, Løgismose is as engrained in the local community as ever. “You never forget those who help you,” says Olsen. “We have always had such good dialogue with Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality and the people of Allested-Vejle. When starting new initiatives or expanding production, we have always sought a high level of involvement from the surrounding area.” A plan has been made together with Faaborg-Midtfyn Municipality to open a food hub in 2017, a dedicated area for food enterprises, built around Løgismose’s premises. Here, Løgismose can reach out to other companies such as start-ups to exchange know-how and cooperate. “We