85,000 bananas from Milagros for the Bio Brotbox campaign

For this year’s Bio Brotbox campaign, BioTropic donated around 85,000 bananas from Milagros in the Dominican Republic in total. This initiative, which is carried out throughout Germany, provides year one pupils with reusable lunch boxes filled with produce from organic farms. The lunch boxes are handed out on the pupils’ first day at school.

Organic wholesaler Terra, based in Berlin, packed 60,000 of our bananas from Milagros, whilst Grell in Kaltenkirchen packed 20,000 and our subsidiary Naturkost West in Duisburg packed 5,000 fruits. Volker Schmidt, our agricultural engineer in the Dominican Republic, selected slightly smaller bananas for this campaign to ensure that they fit into the lunch boxes perfectly when packed.

The Bio Brotbox campaign at Naturkost West
This was the first time that Naturkost West ran a campaign like this one. In the warehouse we share with the organic wholesaler in Duisburg, around 50 motivated volunteers lent a hand. The air was filled with their hubbub and the sound of rustling paper, whilst people and objects were in motion among the many, large cardboard boxes – now filled with the packed lunch boxes. The delivery service UPS supports the campaign and delivered the packages to around 70 schools in Duisburg, Oberhausen, Neuss and Bochum.

Besides bananas, the following delicious goodies also made their way into the boxes: two slices of wholegrain bread, a sesame seed-and-honey bar, an apple, a fruit bar, a pouch of pureed fruit, a fruit tea, a small pot of either jam or liver sausage – and a brochure with information on how “A healthy breakfast helps you learn all day”. These foods were all donated by dedicated manufacturers of organic foods.
At the Duisburg location, the Bio Brotbox initiative is under the patronage of the Lord Mayor of the City of Duisburg, Sören Link (SPD), who helped pack the bananas. „Our group quickly developed a terrific dynamic, the atmosphere was excellent,“ he said.

The Bio Brotbox campaign will return in 2020
Next year, BioTropic and Naturkost West definitely plan to repeat and expand the organic lunch box campaign at the Duisburg location. „BioTropic may be active around the world,” says managing director Andree Mols, “but our home is right here in the Ruhr area.“ It is important that children have something to eat in the morning – and ideally, that should be something healthy. Which is why it is necessary to teach children the importance of a healthy diet at an early age: using tangible and delicious examples instead of a moralising undertone.

Background information:
More and more children arrive at school without having had breakfast, even though a healthy diet is particularly important for children. „A balanced diet is the basis for a day at school. The Bio Brotbox campaign reminds parents, teachers and the children themselves to provide that basis“, says Andree Mols, managing director of BioTropic and Naturkost West.
The Bio Brotbox campaign was established by the organic food sector in 2002 and is being carried out in more and more cities. The non-profit company Bio-Brotbox gemeinnützige Gesellschaft mbH is the main organiser. For more information on the nationwide German campaign, please visit the website of the official Bio Brotbox campaign, which is based in Berlin.

Text: BioTropic GmbH
Images: BioTropic GmbH
Status: September 2019

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