Here is the link to the Fall Edition of Organic & Wellness News. I’ve contributed a number of articles to this issue, including a company profile about Berlin-based vegan supermarket chain Veganz (read the OWN article here), previews about the upcoming Naturkosmetikbranchenkongress (OWN article) and organic food trade show Biofach America/Expo East (OWN article), an article on the Baobab tree and UK brand Aduna’s innovative social marketing campaign #makebaobabfamous and an article on this summer’s organic equivalency agreement between the US and Switzerland. Enjoy.
OWN: The Fall 2015 edition of Organic & Wellness News is now online
Filed under Brand Profiles, Industry News, organicwellnessnews.com, Retail, Show Reports, Trade Shows, Trends
Mintel articles: Kadewe Group, Soho House, Nickerchen and Miriam Jacks
Here are some of my Mintel articles from the first half of the year:
The February cityscape was about German premium department store group Kadewe Group. Kadewe Group (which was sold to Italian department store chain La Rinascente this summer) has launched three signature city fragrances – 030 Berlin, 040 Hamburg and 089 Munich – which were developed by Frau Tonis Parfum, one of my favourite Berlin perfumeries.
In early 2015, Berlin’s Soho House – the Berlin dependance of London’s famous Soho House private members club – opened a store slash café slash creative space slash co-working area. My March article was about this new location: The Store is open to everyone (unlike the rest of Soho House) and features a café (their coffee is supplied by Berlin’s Bonanza Coffee Heroes), large retail area (designer fashion, accessories and other stuff), beauty salon (hairdressing, manicures and pedicures), comfortable sofas and free wifi. A good café choice if you’re in that neighbourhood of Torstrasse.
My April article was about Nickerchen, Berlin’s first power-napping store which opened in December 2014. Nickerchen (the German term for “small nap”) is the brilliant idea of Irina Ivachkovets. You can rent day beds for 10, 20 or 30 minutes; Irina also offers a range of massage treatments, there are early-bird and after-work yoga sessions and once a week she organises a popular salsa dancing night. Nickerchen is a great example of a new type of urban spa – well, you can read all about that in the PDF. Nickerchen is at Zimmerstrasse 27 near Checkpoint Charlie; check it out if you’re in the area.
And the May cityscape was another store profile: Miriam Jacks, one of Berlin’s most high-profile makeup artists, has opened a brand new store right in the middle of Kastanienallee in Prenzlauer Berg. Jacks is L’Oréal Germany’s national makeup artist; her new retail store also features a salon, beauty treatment area, barber’s shop and a great selection of niche beauty brands.
Enjoy, but please respect the copyright (Mintel/BPC)!
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Filed under Berlin, Brand Profiles, Industry News, Mintel, Retail, Store Profiles, Trends
Exhibition: Dancing on the Volcano – J.F. Schwarzlose fragrance exhibition
Yesterday evening I attended the opening of Stadtmuseum Berlin’s new exhibition: “Tanz auf dem Vulkan” (Dancing on the Volcano) – Berlin’s “Golden Twenties” as reflected in art and design. The Weimar Republic (a historical epoch defined as extending from 1918, the end of WWI, to 1933, the year when Adolf Hitler became German chancellor) is one of the most interesting, complex and, of course, pivotal periods in German history.
Tanz auf dem Vulkan approaches Berlin’s Weimar Republic from a different angle. Rather than analysing the political, social and economical aspects of these fifteen years and what they were leading up to (depressing and very grim since we all know what happened), the exhibition highlights a different side of the Weimar Republic: the hedonistic and colourful lifestyle, culture, art and design of Germany’s capital in the Roaring Twenties.
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Filed under Berlin, Design, Exhibitions, Mintel
Veganz, DM Bio and Trend it Up: Drugstore retailer DM is gearing up for battle
Yes, this is a rather tabloid-sounding headline! However, for the last six months German drugstore chain DM has dominated the retail headlines in Germany with a slew of interesting and innovative projects: In April, the DM group introduced its new organic food brand DM Bio (de-listing organic brand Alnatura in the process). Then, DM announced that it would launch an online store plus a brand new own label make-up brand (Trend it Up). And this July, the newspapers reported that DM had entered in a distribution agreement with Berlin-based vegan supermarket chain Veganz to retail a 50-sku portfolio of vegan brands, superfoods and raw food products.
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Filed under Berlin, Brand Profiles, Industry News, organicwellnessnews.com, Retail, Trends
New project: Beautyjagd.de – Organic beauty news in English!
I have a new editorial project and it has already become one of my favourite assignments. I don’t know if you’ve come across Beautyjagd.de? It’s the biggest organic beauty blog in Germany and German-speaking Europe and offers well-researched articles on a wide range of topics – brand profiles, detailed product reviews, interviews, articles about regional beauty brands…..It’s one of the few beauty blogs I read for fun and not just for professional purposes.
Anyway, I’ve been a fan of Beautyjagd for years so I was delighted when Julia (who runs the blog) approached me with the following idea: she wants to offer her readers an English-language version of the most important articles (for those times when Google Translate simply won’t cut it!) and asked me for help with the translation and localisation of the content. Yay!
Instead of translating every single article we decided it would be best to publish a condensed English version of the most interesting features that have appeared on Beautyjagd. And you can check out the first English installment here. Enjoy!
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Filed under Beautyjagd
Brand Profile: CremeKampagne
I first came across Berlin-based organic skin and body care brand CremeKampagne last autumn when I visited Original Unverpackt supermarket in Kreuzberg. Original Unverpackt is Berlin’s first supermarket to sell groceries in bulk and without packaging – you bring your own containers or buy reusable packaging in the store.
I was at OU to write an article for Mintel (read the article here or check out this profile) and was walking around the store, checking out products and taking pics. OU sells a lot of regional labels and in their personal care section they carried a selection of skin and body care products from a small Berlin brand: the aforementioned CremeKampagne.
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Filed under Berlin, Brand Profiles, Retail, Trends
Company Profile: Farina
While 4711 Echt Kölnisch Wasser is arguably the best-known fragrance manufactured in the German city of Cologne, there is another – and much older – local Eau de Cologne company. Farina can trace its roots back to 1709 and although the brand’s fragrances are a lot more exclusive than 4711, its customer base is equally international.
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Filed under Brand Profiles, Retail, Store Profiles, Travel
Cake design extraordinaire: Les Gourmandises de Miyuko in Zurich
I visited the most amazing patisserie in Zurich yesterday – the famous Les Gourmandises de Miyuko. I’d been in Freiburg (a city in Southern Germany, close to the Swiss border) and was travelling back to Berlin.
Freiburg doesn’t have an airport and Berlin is up in Eastern Germany (the travel time between the two cities is around 6 ½ hours by train) so it was actually cheaper and faster to fly to Zurich and then take the train across the border.
And a stop-over in Zurich is always a bonus! I had booked my return train and flight so I’d have a free afternoon in the city and after a quick visit to Kunsthaus museum to check out the new exhibition “Europa: The Future of History” (interesting!) I walked over to Kreis 6 district to visit Miyuko.
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Filed under Délicieux!, Travel
DMY International Design Festival Berlin 2015: [Show Report]
As expected, last weekend’s DMY International Design Festival was very interesting indeed. The organizers had selected a different location this year: DMY 2015 was held in Kraftwerk, an old power station which was originally built in the early 1960s. It was the first time I’d actually visited the Kraftwerk; I knew it only as a location for events, exhibitions and concerts and the building also hosts legendary techno music club Tresor.
We’re talking major industrial charm here, lots of towering concrete, pipes everywhere, slightly gothic and very atmospheric – a bit of a contrast to the soaring spaces of Tempelhof’s airport hangars from last year but still very effective. Made for some stunning photos! The festival featured five official sections this year – Showroom (for established designers and brands), Education (for design school and universities), Lab (for up-and-coming young talents), Berliner Zimmer (“Berlin Room”, a special area for Berlin-based designers) and DMY Store, a shopping area for design fans.
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Filed under Berlin, Design, Exhibitions, Show Reports, Trends
Events: Berlin Food Art Week 2015 and The Green Market (Summer Edition)
June is going to be such a busy month! In addition to the annual DMY International Design Festival next weekend (11th to 14th June 2015, I have my press accreditation already and have been looking forward to this festival for weeks!), there are two more fabulous events that are taking place in Berlin this month: Berlin Food Art Week 2015 and Green Market Berlin, the city’s first Vegan lifestyle market.
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Filed under Berlin, Exhibitions
TRENDS. TRAVELS. AND BERLIN 