Bejo: Kohlrabi concept surprises at Biofach 2017

Last week Bejo participated at the Nordrhein-Westfalen stand at world’s largest organic fair, BIOFACH. 50.000 people, out of 134 different countries, visited BIOFACH in combination with VIVANESS, International Tradefair for natural cosmetics.


2526 companies out of 88 countries presented their assortment at BIOFACH. Currently Bejo offers more than 150 organic varieties distributed over 40 crops. Bejo also organised a succesful minisymposium on the topic organic chain with guest speakers Mr. Gerjan Snippe, director of Bio Brass, and Mrs Anne Schröder-Burckhardt of Westhof-Bio. They gave good and practical advice how to breed successfully organic vegetables. Also the importance of using organic seed was mentioned. Organic seed is necessary to complete the organic chain.

Kohrispy concept

The experiences of Pieter Gabriëls, director of Bejo Germany: 'We welcomed a lot of German visitors but also guests from the Netherlands, Austria, Italy and Suisse. More and more farmers are aware of the impact of using organic seed. The Kohrispy concept was often a reason for conversation. Most of the visitors are familiar with kohlrabi as sliced or cooked cabbage. They were surprised by the attraction of Kohlrabi sticks. The new organic varieties Conga and Passat were present at the Bejo stand and were seen as a valuable expansion of the organic seed assortment of Bejo. BIOFACH offers a good opportunity to have interesting talks with ´influencers´ in the chain. They are no farmers but often work for different ministries and branch organisations.'


Organic is becoming more and more important: In 2016 the German families spent 9,9 % more on organic foods and beverages than the year before. According to the BÖLW (der Bund Ökologische Lebensmittelwirtschaft) the total turnover was 9,48 Mrd. EUR. The EU organic food market has reached a level of €26 billion.