Food Studio

Naturally, Økologisk 3.0 was also held in Røros, a small rural community with an urban flare and a living DIY-culture. One of the best examples is Rørosmeieriet – the Røros Dairy. When the local dairy was being shut down by its national owner, the local farmers invested time and money and managed to start their own dairy. Today that dairy is the only solely organic dairy in Norway – and they also keep local traditional dairy-based food alive – as do a multitude of other local food producers and companies. Together they create some interesting synergies that we think are connected with the green shift, moving towards a more sustainable, close-looped economy and way of life.

We brought some of these thoughts into our workshop, with the intention of creating five new organic products or services. To do this we wanted to make a different atmosphere, take the participants out of the seminar room and into a slow paced, inspirational space. A space where it was easy to get in touch with the root of our core values, the reasons we want to work with organic products and how our values can take our businesses, organisations and causes forward.

Each group was handed some fresh organic vegetables, dirt still on, to use as inspiration and to present their ideas. We really enjoyed seeing the participants working together, using their creativity both in ideas and in the hands-on representation of their products – and when they started to borrow from each other, sharing the resources they had been given, we knew they were on to something important.

Hopefully some of the good ideas from the workshop will manifest themselves in the near future. Maybe one of these guys, all three working at management level in one of Norway’s three food chains, were inspired to try something new?

A rare sight seeing these three guys in the same workshop? From the left: Martin Klafstad (Rema 1000), Eivind Haalien (NorgesGruppen) and Knut Lutnæs (COOP).

Words by Hanne Gideonsen and photographs by Alexander Benjaminsen.