Alnatura
The Alnatura Produktions- und Handels GmbH is a chain of organic food supermarkets and producer of organic food headquartered in Darmstadt, Hesse in Germany. The company was founded in 1984 by Götz Rehn and distributes food and textiles, produced according to ecological aspects, under the trademark Alnatura. The company is based on ideas of the esoteric anthroposophy of Rudolf Steiner, which its founder Götz Rehn was strongly influenced by. The company is like Demeter and others, part of the pseudoscientific anthroposopical community in Germany.
These products are sold both by various drugstore and retail chains as well as the captive chain Alnatura Super Natur Markt. Alnatura currently operates 107 supermarkets in Germany, each with 500 to 800 square meters of retail space, mainly in Baden-Württemberg, Hesse and Rhineland-Palatinate.
Unlike other retail chains, Alnatura does not have a for the entire company and its employees were paid below the collective agreement up until 2010.
History
Founding
The economist, who still is the CEO today, founded the Alnatura Produktions- und Handels GmbH as a consulting firm under the name Konzeption und Vertrieb natürlicher Lebensmittel Dr. Rehn in Fulda, Hesse in 1984. Initial plans to conceptualize the business as stores for children's clothing made from cotton or a chain of vegetarian self-service restaurants, were discarded. A year later, Alnatura was registered as a word and design trademark. In 1986, the company began selling organic products as a retail format in the grocery stores of tegut and dm drug stores. These cooperations make half of the revenue. The company's first supermarket opened in Mannheim, Baden-Württemberg on October 1, 1987. In 1989, the company moved from Fulda to Bickenbach. Since January 2019, the company is based in Darmstadt.According to information provided by the company, by 2005 more than half of all leading positions were occupied by women. In the same year, the company received the first prize Nachhaltiger Mittelstand 2004 from the, and Rehn was nominated for "Entrepreneur of the Year" by the auditors Ernst & Young. In 2006, the 25th Alnatura supermarket was opened in Cologne.
In 2012, the first Alnatura organic supermarket was opened in Switzerland in collaboration with Migros in Zürich. For this purpose, the Alnatura AG was founded with its headquarters in Zürich. Since then, their trade partner Migros has been marketing Alnatura products in its stores all over Switzerland, and since July 2014 also via LeShop.ch. Alnatura and Migros' newest collaboration consists of setting up 30 new Alnatura branches throughout urban centers across Switzerland. Since 2014, it is also possible to collect Payback points in Germany, whereas in Switzerland Alnatura is part of the Cumulus program.
Disagreement between Alnatura and dm since 2014
In 2014, the drugstore chain dm, which until then had been AlnaturaDuring a second proceeding brought up by Werner, he demanded trademark rights from Rehn to Alnatura. The case was tried by the Landgericht in Frankfurt. The lawsuit, however, was rejected at first, so Werner filed a complaint at the Oberlandesgericht.
Development after 2015
Since 2015 the products were delivered through a proper in cooperation with the Delticom subsidiary Gourmondo Food GmbH to the following 19 European countries: Germany, Austria, Italy, Belgium, France, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Romania, Greece, Poland, Bulgaria, Czechia, Slovakia, Ireland, United Kingdom, Denmark, and Sweden. Also since 2015, certain baby products have been available at.On March 17, 2016, the 100th Alnatura supermarket was opened on Friedrichstraße in Berlin. By November 2018, there were 132 Alnatura supermarkets in 63 cities and about 12,300 stores of the 19 trading partners in 14 European countries.
In 2016, the construction of the new company headquarters on the terrain of the former company Kelley Barracks in the city of Darmstadt were started. According to the company, the building meets the ecological standards and to date is the biggest office building in Europe that has an exterior facade which is completely made from loam. The corporation established a so-called Alnatura Campus, on which amongst others the deli restaurant Tibits opened up a store. The building was opened in January 2019.
In September 2016, the first eggs of the Alnatura Bruderküken-Initiative were regionally delivered; the concept is planned to be applied to more and more stores. The initiative aimed to exclusively offer eggs of hens whose male siblings are raised to be broiler chickens and are not killed when they are still chicks. The same month, Alnatura enabled mobile payments via Payback Pay.
In March 2018, a store of the French chain 'Match' started to sell Alnatura products. The plan was to launch Alnatura products in all Match stores in France by the end of 2019.
In September 2018, it was announced that Alnatura would expand their cooperation with and would remove single-use plastic bags for fruits and vegetables. Likewise, disposable cups for the selling of drinks are no longer available.
In Oktober 2019, Alnatura and other organic supermarkets in Germany discontinued millet products by the 'Spreewälder Hirsemühle' because the owner is a member of the political party AfD.
In the beginning of 2020, Alnatura closed down its online shop.
Key figures
The company's key figures according to the attested annual financial statements :| Sales | Employees | Stores | |
| 2005/06 | 184,9 | 405 | 25 |
| 2006/07 | 246,1 | 528 | 31 |
| 2007/08 | 305,8 | 736 | 40 |
| 2008/09 | 360,5 | 909 | 50 |
| 2009/10 | 399,9 | 1009 | 53 |
| 2010/11 | 465,1 | 1369 | 65 |
| 2011/12 | 517,6 | 1463 | 71 |
| 2012/13 | 594,4 | 1769 | 80 |
| 2013/14 | 689,8 | 1901 | 96 |
| 2014/15 | 759,9 | 2105 | 98 |
| 2015/16 | 761,2 | 2229 | 107 |
| 2016/17 | 772,9 | 2526 | |
| 2017/18 | 825,1 | 2670 | 126 |
| 2018/19 | 903,5 | 2837 |
International activity
In Germany, other trading partners such as the German retail chain Edeka and the drugstore chain Müller also started cooperating and selling Alnatura's proprietary products.In Luxembourg, products by Alnatura are distributed by the local supermarket chain Cactus, while in France, the products can be bought in the supermarket chain Match.
In 2012, Alnatura collaborated with the Swiss market chain Migros. In late July 2019, Migros opened the twelfth Alnatura store in Switzerland in the city of Lucerne.
In Austria, like in Germany, Alnatura was mostly marketed by the drugstore chain dm and various reform houses at first. Following the afore mentioned disputes between Alnatura and dm, Alnatura expanded its distribution network in Austria in 2015 to include the supermarket chains Billa and, which are part of, while at the same time dm reduced the range of Alnatura products and focused on corresponding Austrian products via their own brand dmBio, which was launched in 2015.
Membership and operations
Alnatura is part of the IFOAM-Organics International and a member of the .Since June 2012, Alnatura-markets have been participating in the Payback-Points-Programme.
Alnatura is a sponsor of the "Wir haben es satt!" demonstrations and supports the demands of the campaign.
Götz Rehn, the founder and director of Alnatura, was greatly influenced by the Anthroposophic movement, instilling its values to the brand. So since 2011, each monthly corporate publication Alnatura Magazine has a special supplement Anthroposophical Perspectives attached, which regularly addresses anthroposophical topics, as for example a series about anthroposophic medicine in 2010.