Leading German retail chain REWE is to partner with Bioland to expand its certified organic offer, as part of a winder sustainability strategy. Bioland is Germany’s largest organic farming association

The cooperation complements a long-standing cooperation with organic standards organisation Naturland and membership of Demeter, which the retailer says undermines its commitment to “consistently promote ecological responsibility in retail”.

The new partnership expands the range of association-certified organic products and aims to shorten distance from the farm to its 3,800 stores, with its emphasis on sourcing German-grown produce. 

“With Bioland as a partner, we can offer our customers in all regions of Germany even more high-quality, local organic products according to the highest standards,” said Daniel Kniel, a senior director at the REWE Group. “For us, cooperation is an important milestone on the way to even more ecological responsibility, regionality and animal welfare. Together with Bioland, our long-standing partner Naturland and since 2020 also Demeter, we want to actively shape the future of agriculture and set new standards for responsible action in the food retail trade.

Welcoming the new partnership, Jan Plagge, President of Bioland e.V., said: “An agricultural and food industry with foresight lies in stable, long-term partnerships that promote organic agriculture, secure regional value creation and offer consumers high-quality organic food from their homeland. With REWE, we have a partner at our side who shares these goals and wants to actively move forward with us. Our cooperation is therefore a strong signal. REWE is very experienced nationwide with fresh and regional assortments and at the same time is aware of its responsibility for our livelihoods. We would now like to expand this together. Bioland brings a network of around 9,000 farms that work according to the strict guidelines of the association. In this way, we create stable prospects for the expansion of domestic organic production throughout Germany and offer consumers short distances to the products of the organic farms of their region.”