food you can trust

the FArmer And the cheF

What would you do if you wanted a choice of organic fruits and vegetables

but couldn’t seem to find it?

You create an organic box scheme delivery service like the farmer and the chef did.Out of enlightened self-interest, Thomas Harttung, the farmer, and Søren Ejlersen, the chef, started Aarstiderne (the Seasons in Danish). The basic concept behind Aarstiderne is simple: pack a wooden box brimming with the season’s freshest fruits and vegetables, supply a choice of family-friendly recipes and deliver this box right to people’s doorsteps.

The idea was to offer quality, nutrition, reci-pes and the convenience of Internet ordering then see if customers responded. They did. On January 1, 1999 Aarstiderne became a reality, and boxes soon started arriving at homes all across Denmark. Today, the boxes go out to over 45,000 homes as well as busi-nesses in Denmark, Sweden and Germany.

it’S All About getting bAck to the rootS

like our miSSion StAtement SAyS:

We recreate the close links between the work of the organic farmer and the work

in all the kitchens – transforming the boun-ties of the land into feasts of honest, nutri-

tious, seasonal and inspired food.

eArS Aren’t only About corn

Of course, since we are farmers, when we think of ears, we think of corn, but just as important to Aarstiderne is our

capacity to listen. It has served us well.

We see the market as an open and honest conversation with our customers. We appre-ciate that our customers will only remain in a dialogue with us as long as they are treated as human beings and not as a demographic segment. By listening careful-ly, we stay present and tuned in to the soft murmurings of change.And one last thing … our customers have become our R&D. They tell us what they want and what they need and they come up with crazy ideas that actually work!

when thinking inSide the box

iS A good thing

At Aarstiderne, we see our role as being present but invisible; this means

we let nature do what it’s best at, then we work hard doing the rest.

Working with nature and not against it has been our philosophy since the beginning and it continues be our strategy today even though the organisation has grown. What can we say? It’s hard to argue with thou-sands of years of success.

In 1997, the first fruit and vegetable boxes were produced by and sold by Barritskov Grøntsagshave (Barritskov Vegetable Gar-den). Its original 100 customers picked up their own boxes at the farm. The season lasted a total of 10 weeks, at the end of which all the produce had been eaten.

The scope of Aarstiderne has expanded con-siderably since then. Today we cultivate three farms which, together with our inter-national suppliers, provide fruits and vege-tables for delivery all over Denmark and parts of Sweden and Germany. We have even expanded our delivery to include busi-nesses and restaurants. We can’t wait to see what happens next.

our creAtive PArtnerS

the growerS

One of the most important relationships in the Aarstiderne organisation is the

reciprocal one we have with our growers.

We see it is a frequent back-and-forth brainstorming dialogue instead of a tradi-tional phone call to place an order.We rely on them because they are literally our hands in the dirt, telling us what works and giving us creative ideas about new products to surprise our customers. After years of co-operation, they can exper-iment with their products and take some risks. This co-operation also allows them to spend more time cultivating their lands and less time selling.

århuS

billeSlundBilleslund 2, 6510 Gram

bArritSkovBarritskovvej 34, 7150 Barrit

coPenhAgen

århuS

krogeruP AvlSgAArdKrogerupvej 3C, 3050 Humlebæk

our FArmS in denmArk

Aarstiderne consists of three farms, each playing its own role in the process.

Billeslund provides about 50 percent of the vegetables for our boxes. The headquarters are located at Barritskov, while Krogerup is our centre for customer contact.

billeSlund FArm – denmArk’S lArgeSt

kitchen gArden

Half of all the vegetables in the boxes originate from this fertile farm

near Gram in southern Jutland.

50 different types of vegetables, including carrots, leeks, corn, beans, salad, pumpkins, onions and more are organically grown then delivered to Barritskov for packing.

Having such a large kitchen garden, 100 hec-tares, allows us to closely oversee the organ-ic process from sowing to harvesting. This has two great advantages: we see what works first hand, letting us adapt quickly to chang-es, and it acts as a kind of experimental field where we can test our creative ideas.

bArritSkov FArm – where the

PrActicAl meetS the ProgreSSive

Where all our products come together before going out to our customers.

Some things just work extremely well for us, like hand packing and washing the various products for shipment. Although the volume of goods passing through Barritskov has grown considerably since the first boxes of 1999, we continue to do it this way. It just makes sense.And just like all our produce passes through Barritskov Farm, so do a lot our best ideas. It is home to the IT department, our envi-ronmental department, our financial depart-ment, and the main administration.

krogeruP FArm – where click

And brick come together

Think of Krogerup farm as Aarstiderne’s hectic laboratory where ideas and

opinions are formulated, tested, tried, and cooked before finally being

presented to our customers.

Krogerup is home to our Internet centre. It is where our Conversations Department, which deals with all our customer communi-cation, is located. Our chefs use Krogerup to write and test each week’s recipes, while the farm shop sells directly to the public.

gArden to StomAch

Garden to Stomach is a non-profit garden experiment at Krogerup for school children. In this program, they grow their own organ-ic produce as a class then eventually trans-form the bounty into a simple feast at the end of the season. Our farmers who work with the children report that the classes that work best together are also the ones that produce the healthiest, most abundant crops. Hmm, food for thought …

www.havertilmaver.dk

info@aarstiderne.com

mAAltiderne (the meAlS)

Krogerup hosts a wide variety of events where people are invited to walk around

and learn all about organic farming.

Our chefs, as well as our farmers, are on hand to help you and your friends or col-leagues pick fruits and vegetables from the farm and together prepare a meal for every-one to enjoy.

Krogerup is an ideal venue for company events, team building, parties and seminars. We can tailor a program to suit you or your company, and the food is always – you guessed it – organic.

boxeS without borderS

Aarstiderne brings organic produce to our neighbours

AArStiderne in Sweden

In 2004 Aarstiderne looked beyond Danish borders and opened in Sweden under the name Årstiderna. Sweden was the next logi-cal step in the evolution of our concept. We work closely with local Swedish farmers and chefs so our customers in Sweden can ben-efit from their local bounty. Today, we ship boxes to over 4,000 households in Malmo, Uppsala, Stockholm, Gothenburg, Angelholm and Trelleborg.

www.arstiderna.com +46 87 20 50 20

AArStiderne in germAny

Billeslund Farm is only 50 km north of the Danish/German border, so it made sense for us to include northern Germany in our delivery system. Happy families in Flensburg and Hamburg are now getting our boxes delivered to their door.

www.de.aarstiderne.com +49 40 18 20 62 20

Sweden

denmArk

germAny

AArStiderne engroS-wholeSAle

orgAnic

Aarstiderne now offers its services to the country’s largest kitchens in restaurants, canteens, and staff restaurants. We consider it a natural extension of our business to provide the same quality organic fruits and vegetables to businesses and restaurants that we do to individual families. And since we are basically a large group of farmers and chefs, we just can’t wait to get our hands into the best restaurants and can-teens around the country. To this end, we also offer our services in helping to set up and to transform traditional kitchens into organic ones.

www.engros.aarstiderne.com +45 7026 0032

our cArbon Foot-Print: Size reAlly

doeS mAtter

One of the core commitments at Aarstiderne is the pursuit of the best possible practices that serve

people as well as the planet.

It isn’t just an assurance that the produce is organic, we have also pledged to deliver it to your door with the least possible impact on the environment.

In an effort to reduce our CO2 output, we are constantly evaluating suppliers, packag-ing, energy consumption and logistics.For us, making decisions on how best to reduce our carbon footprint isn’t something that happens at a meeting once a year.

It’s a daily evaluation of how best to be open to new developments that we can adopt. Change in this area happens quickly, and we are determined to be in the fore-front. You can follow our progress by going to our website.

www.aarstiderne.com

Thomas Harttung

thomAS hArttungCo-founder and Chairman of Aarstiderne

Why did you and Søren start Aarstiderne?“Søren and I founded Aarstiderne to test our little idea on a larger scale. But no one could have predicted that Aarstiderne would evolve into what it is today, 10 years later. Sometimes reality goes beyond your wildest dreams.” Your favourite vegetable?“Celeriac – because it keeps its unique taste whether it is raw, marinated, fried, baked, mashed or soup’ed.”

Most recently, Thomas founded GreenCarbon and BlackCarbon, initiatives that promote and develop the idea of large-scale CO2-sequestration in productive farming and for-estry landscapes.

Søren ejlerSenCo-founder and Vice Chairman of Aarstiderne

Why did you and Thomas start Aarstiderne? “It is incredibly rewarding working with colleagues on an idea that is so completely based on nature’s own rhythm. Working with the deeply serious business of nature is an eye-opener, and at the same time it’s filled with humour, satisfaction, potential, meaning and good energy.”Your favourite vegetable?“Root vegetables and cabbage in general – they add great diversity to your meals and they should be a part of every family’s basic kitchen. They are filled with taste, fibre, vitamins, minerals and – food …”

Søren Ejlersen

Ernst Eskildsen, Annette Hartvig Larsen, Thomas Slott

Why did you join Aarstiderne?“I want to contribute to something that rep-resents quality, something satisfying to work with. I wanted to be part of a new agricultur-al and business model where you literally see things grow before your eyes and where you also grow as a human being in the process.”

Annette hArtvig lArSenCEO of Aarstiderne

Why did you join Aarstiderne?“Aarstiderene is the ideal place for me because of enthusiastic and motivated colleagues. Things are constantly changing, and I get a lot of job-satisfaction from our products, methods and company attitude. It just feels right.”

Why did you join Aarstiderne?“I can’t imagine a better place to work. It’s really a place that is growing and developing, and how many people can say that they have traded in their high tech office for a farm?”

ernSt eSkildSenDirector of Customer Relations

thomAS SlottDirector of Operations

AlexAnder SchwedelerTriodos Bank

Vice Chairman of the Board

“I love Aarstiderne because the people there live a new spirit. For me, Aarstiderne represents a more positive

future that is currently emerging and one which we all want to understand better.”

AArStiderne.com

Aarstiderne, Barritskovvej 34, 7150 Barrit info@aarstiderne.com, + 45 70 26 00 66

food you can trust