Freezing weather and Local food: are they compatible?

Feb 22, 2021

It happens that sometimes, not everything goes as planned.

As you know, all of our products come from local farms from the surrounding areas of Berlin. 

It has been snowing in berlin for 3 weeks now. As a result, the markets are empty of their vegetable and fruit growers and our farmers have stopped delivering to Berlin. It’s nothing new that freezing temperatures prevent vegetables from growing and can restrain farmers to make a profit out of it. 

Therefore we went collecting the produce ourselves. This gave us a chance to get a breath of fresh air and a chance to discover a beautiful new farm near Berlin in Teltow, Brandenburg. But we were lost in the middle of the snow and frozen field looking for the farm. It was getting darker and darker when finally we saw Axel on his bicycle by -10℃ trying to find us. What a great first contact! He showed his wonderful farm. That’s how we met Axel Szilleweit who founded his farm “Teltower Rübchen” in 1990.

It is a Family farm with 42 ha of cultivation area for fruit, vegetable, ornamental plant, young plant and herb production with a diverse orchard. Specialities are tasty tomato varieties such as Harzfeuer, Campari, yellow tomatoes, beef tomatoes, roma tomatoes; also rare vegetable varieties such as Teltower Rübchen, Gatowerkugeln, chard, parsnips, salsify, as well as old fruit varieties such as Goldparmäne, Ananasrenette, Gravensteiner, Dülmener Rosenapfel and others.

That’s why working with local producers can be a real challenge but it’s how Benoo can be sustainable. Our chefs adapt their recipes to the given supply in order to create inspiring and varied recipes.