We would like to introduce you to Micha and Lukas and their platform close-up enjoyment present. They also come from Graz and want to use their platform to strengthen smaller family organic farms in particular.

"The personal relationship between organic farmers and consumers gives confidence and appreciation.

It's best if they just tell us themselves who they are and how they got there:

We are Lukas and Micha Beiglböck, two brothers from Graz.

Our grandparents in Styria still had pigs themselves. The farm where our mother grew up still exists today. In the meantime, it has become an organic farm where you can see that the animals are doing well.

In our childhood, we were still present at farm slaughterings ourselves. But since then, much has changed in agriculture and in consumer behaviour: A tendency towards cheap meat and mass stables next to the motorway with up to thousands of animals are not uncommon today.

At a barbecue with relatives, we got to talking about pork and also about how tiny the organic share of pork is. Our cousin, himself an organic farmer with pigs, is a great organic farmer and you can see on his farm that the animals are doing well. You can taste all that in his products. However, he does not have the necessary time for direct sales and distribution. This is how the idea came about to develop a project that helps organic pig farmers to get into direct marketing or to expand it. From the beginning, our goal was to create perspectives for agriculture that are strongly oriented towards the interests and needs of organic farmers.

And: We know that organic pork simply tastes better. Organic pork plays in a completely different quality league. Developing an awareness for enjoyment and quality again is one of the things that drives us.

That is exactly why we started nahgenuss. We want to promote small family farming and make organic meat possible at lower prices.

Initially only designed for organic pork, we expanded nahgenuss.at to other products (organic beef, organic lamb,...) at the end of 2017 due to the great demand.

In the course of the Corona crisis in 2020, some organic winegrowers experienced a drop in sales because the gastronomy customers were no longer there, there were no more wine tastings and no more Heuriger (in Styria Buschenschank) were open. Since we do not run away from challenges, we decided after a short discussion to open nahgenuss for organic wine. Since April 2020, organic wine from farmers has therefore also been offered on nahgenuss.

The farmers get more than 4 times the selling price compared to classical trade systems.

How does this work? The farms only pay nahgenuss a service fee of 12% for technology, support and marketing - thus 88% remain with the producers instead of only around 20% of the sales price as in regular trade. This not only leaves the farms with considerably more, but at the same time customers pay less for products of the same quality as in the trade. In addition to the price and the certainty of knowing where the meat in the fridge comes from, customers also appreciate the fact that nahgenuss.at offers meat rarities from rare breeds, such as Manglitza pork or meat from Krainer Steinfasch. Especially rare and old breeds of pork, beef or lamb often have no place in the trade, but are considered to have a particularly good taste.

Principle of crowd-butchering

In addition, nahgenuss applies the principle of crowd-butchering: The sale only takes place if enough customers can be found to buy a whole animal together. As soon as an animal is completely sold online, it is slaughtered, cut up and the customers get their ready-to-cook organic meat package delivered to their doorstep by refrigerated shipping or can pick it up directly at the organic farm. This gives the farmers the opportunity to sell the whole animal and use all the parts.

www.nahgenuss.at

Contributed image: © Julia Rauchenberger