Full case study report: EVG Landwege - Germany

Summary

The producer-consumer-cooperative EVG Landwege e.G. (EVG: Erzeuger-Verbraucher-Gemeinschaft) is located in the city of Lübeck. It has five organic retail outlets in the south-east of the Federal State of Schleswig-Holstein, the northern Federal State of Germany. The Hanseatic City of Lübeck is the second-largest city in Schleswig-Holstein and one of the major ports of Germany. Situated on the river Trave, it was the "capital" of the Hanseatic League (‘Queen of the Hanse’) for several centuries and, because of its Brick Gothic architectural heritage, is listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Lübeck is a very lively, major city with roughly 214,000 inhabitants. Due to its history as free trade hub, Lübeck’s inhabitants are still convinced about the spirit of their civic town. They are proud of their city and appreciate the high standard of living in the sheltered coastal area adjacent to the Baltic Sea. Traditionally, Lübeck has a culinary reputation. It is the ‘Marzipan city’ since 1800. These days, nobody can tell with any certainty whether it was a particularly skilful and imaginative pastry baker or whether it was competition among the various, at the time very famous Lübeck-based pastry bakeries that lead to this golden age of marzipan production