Category Archives: Travel

Tokyo Design Week 2016: [Show Report]

One of the highlights of this autumn’s Tokyo trip was the visit to Tokyo Design Week 2016. TDW is one of the biggest and most important design shows in Asia; it takes place each year in Tokyo’s Meiji Jingu-mae park in late October (this year, TDW took place from 26th October to 7th November) and it is – quite simply – fabulous.

Product design, robotics, arts and crafts, architecture, interior design, intelligent fabrics – off-beat, ingenious, weird, innovative logical and sometimes completely bizarre design ideas; from young creators and world-famous designers and architects, design school graduates from across Asia; big international exhibitors and niche companies. It makes the brain sparkle.

This was my third visit to TDW (here are my show reviews of TDW 2014 and TDW 2015) and in 2016, my personal favourites included a pair of robot carp, a stylish boutique skin care brand from Taiwan, an Ukiyo-e juke box and two dozen juice mixers that played “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” with different sounds. Click on the link for more pics of my favourite TDW 2016 exhibits!

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Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki

My flight back to Berlin was on Sunday evening so I had most of the day left for sight-seeing. I wanted to visit Helsinki’s Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art because they are showing a temporary exhibition by Korean artist Choi Jeong Hwa – who is also the creator of the open-air “Sea Lives” exhibition that is currently displayed on Helsinki’s Senate Square: large-scale sea creatures constructed from colourful recycled plastic strips.

Kiasma is housed in a striking-looking building on Mannerheimiauko street in the middle of the city centre. Designed by American architect Steven Holl, the museum was officially opened in 1998. Kiasma is part of the Finnish National Gallery’s network of museums; they present cutting-edge Scandinavian contemporary art (no Warhol soup cans here!) with a strong emphasis on Finnish artists.

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Retail notes from Tallinn: [Store Profile] Pillerkaar

During my weekend in Helsinki I also visited Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. From Helsinki, Tallinn is just 2-3 hours by ferry and there are hourly connections so it is the perfect day trip. It was my first visit to Estonia and after walking around the beautiful Old Town for a bit, I started on my must-visit list of local retailers, including a Stockmann outlet, a couple of supermarket chains and, most importantly, a store specialising in organic beauty: Pillerkaar!

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Retail notes from Helsinki: [Store Profile] Ruohonjuuri

One of the retailers on my must-see list in Helsinki was organic supermarket chain Ruohonjuuri. Ruohonjuuri (the name translates as “grass roots”) is one of Finland’s organic food retail pioneers; their first store in Helsinki was opened in 1982. Today Ruohonjuuri has five stores in Helsinki and four outlets in other Finnish cities; they also operate an online store.

I had googled Ruohonjuuri prior to my trip and decided to visit their flagship store on Salomonkatu 5 in Helsinki’s Kamppii district: a very large and beautiful retail space, vis-à-vis from Kampii metro station. The store offers an extensive selection of fresh and dried organic foods, fruit and vegetables, frozen and chilled products and a spectacular organic beauty department, plus a treatment room where you can book a variety of face and beauty treatments.

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Off-Topic: Moomin Museum pop-up exhibition at Helsinki-Vantaa airport

I just returned from a weekend in Helsinki. It was my first visit to Finland and I had a great time: went to a couple of museums, took a day trip to Tallinn (capital of Estonia) and spent many hours in various stores  and supermarkets checking out beauty brands and products. Stay tuned for more articles about retail and art in Helsinki/Tallinn! The first installment is a bit off-topic: whilst waiting at Helsinki-Vantaa airport for my return flight to Berlin, I came across a Moomin Museum pop-up exhibition.

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Company Profile: Coop Switzerland

A few months ago I researched and wrote a company profile on Swiss supermarket chain Coop for one of my magazine projects. In the end, we decided not to use the Coop piece; so here it is (updated and annotated!). Coop is an interesting retailer: like its competitor Migros, the company has very strong position in the Swiss food market – basically, there is Migros (market leader) and Coop and that’s pretty much it as far as supermarket chains are concerned. At least in German Switzerland.

During my article research I noticed how closely  Coop’s brand line-up reflects current food trends: over the past few years, the company has added a number of organic, regional and vegetarian own label brands. And this June, Coop signed a distribution agreement with Berlin-based vegan supermarket chain Veganz. Another interesting project is Coop’s new market place Siroop.ch, the first online store in Switzerland to offer products from local, regional and international manufacturers on one retail platform. For more information on Siroop, scroll down the article!

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Retail notes from Szczecin: [Store Profile] Vegananda

A few days ago I spent the day in Szczecin (or “Stettin”,  as it is called in German), a city in Poland which is located very close to the country’s border with Germany. From Berlin, Stettin is an easy day trip (the direct train takes just 1 h 50 minutes!) so I like to visit every once in a while.

In this case I hadn’t been to Stettin for a couple of years so I used the opportunity to do some store checks (Rossmann, Douglas, Sephora, Hebe, Drogeria Natura, Dayli, Carrefour, Auchan), keeping an eye out for new beauty brands (organic and otherwise!) and also checking on the organic food situation while I was there.

On my recent trip to Budapest I had been surprised by the strong presence of Vegan and Paleo foods in the city (check out my store profile of Bio-Barát) so I was on the lookout for similar developments in Stettin. And I did find something interesting: Vegananda, a charming little Vegan store and café which was opened exactly a year ago.

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OWN: The Summer 2016 edition is online

The Summer Edition of Organic & Wellness News has just been published: here is the link. I have contributed two articles – a review of Natural Products Europe 2016 trade show and a feature on the organic products market in Korea. Enjoy!

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Filed under Asia, Industry News, organicwellnessnews.com, Retail, Trade Shows, Travel, Trends

Retail notes from Budapest: [Store Profile] Bio-Barát

If you’re following me on Instagram you’ll know that last weekend I was in Budapest. I had a fabulous time there; if you like coffee and books, it’s the ideal city! Antiquarian book shopping along Muzéum körut (one of my absolutely FAVOURITE book streets!), sampling espressos in various Budapest cafés, eating roast duck with red cabbage and dumplings, discovering the amazing variety of Tokaj wines and, of course, I also spent hours in various drugstores and supermarkets doing store checks! And whilst doing so, I came across a very interesting domestic health food retailer: Bio-Barát.

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Triangle: Fermented Hydrogel Facial Mask (Whamisa), Pink Camellia Soombi Mask (Blossom Jeju) and Calendula Modeling Mask (Lindsay)

Here is another installment of the Triangle series. Today, I am looking at three popular face mask formats. Although all three companies are from Korea, they are as different as their product concepts: Whamisa is a certified organic niche brand, Blossom Jeju is a premium cosmetics brand from the island of Jeju and Lindsay is the salon face mask manufacturer who started the rubber mask hype in Korea.

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