One day, I was travelling to Greece and an old lady at the market was yelling at a young guy. She was selling local organic garlic and onions. He was selling garlic and onions grown with chemicals and shipped from Asia, 30% cheaper. That’s how I understood globalization in 3 minutes and that’s where the journey with organic food started for me, and believe me it’s a journey.

I’m well aware that buying organic food is a challenge because of the price and it’s unfair because everybody should have access to quality food. I’ll explain more in another article about the hidden costs of what more and more people call toxic food. But in any case, for now it’s expensive.

So, if you’re starting with organic the best is probably to start to get organic dairies and eggs, as well as fresh local veggies that wont stand for days in plastic wraps and that are produced here, without crazy shipping generating CO2 emissions.

Organic and local is the best, local only can be good (but it doesn’t mean it’s organic) and organic from Argentina doesn’t make a lot of sense. So let’s be wise...

This article presents my research about the followings:
 Where to buy organic food in Tampere
 Where to buy fresh organic and local food in Tampere
 Joining an existing group / piiri to buy organic food in Tampere
 Buying in bulk online

1. Where can you buy organic food in Tampere?

(*) Please note that supermarkets veggie’s and fruit’s imported from EU are often coming from Spain where the organic label is respected with a lot of grey zones such as very low wage of emigrant workers. It could also be of some importance to note that GMO are allowed in all Spain and it may affect the quality of organic crops. GMO are forbidden in Italy, Greece and Netherlands (From EU website: “France, Germany, Austria, Greece, Hungary, the Netherlands, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Bulgaria, Poland, Denmark, Malta, Slovenia, Italy and Croatia have chosen a total ban.”).

2. Where can you buy fresh organic and / or local food in Tampere?

Tammela market (Rekola Farm is selling directly there from July to September) and Kauppahalli are the two places.

The map below shows that there are about 5-6 organic farms around Tampere but I haven’t contacted them all. This Google maps doesn’t show Rekola so the search can be improved. It doesn’t show either Sarkala farm (organic eggs and beef) http://kangasalanlahiruoka.fi/sarkalan-tila/ (Tursolantie 194, Kangasala).

No farmers market yet in Tampere but some farmers are selling locally of course. For example Kurjen Tila, in Vesilahti.

Some farmers are in the progress of transitioning towards an "organic label". The label is expensive for farmers and they are very useful for the consumers. But if you know a farmer with good practices with no label... well, you’re lucky I guess!

Otherwise, the local farmers network is called Reko. The orders are placed on Facebook weekly or online. The quality can vary a lot and they are not focused on organic production. When you place your order through their form, you can tick "Search only naturally grown items", but just like with cosmetics, "natural" is a very hazy word.

Last but not least you can have local eggs delivered with Eggspress service.

3. Joining an existing group (piiri) to buy organic food in Tampere?

We are working on creating an organic food circle ("luomu ruokapiiri") with Rekola farm delivering down town weekly. More info soon!

This farm has also a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) system that is really great. You basically buy shares and get a box of veggies every two week. Read more about the CSA here.

Tampiiri is amazing and I strongly encourage you to join their circle. It was created in the 90’ to make organic food available to students and there are about 150 members. They deliver pre-ordered products from local organic farmers to members once a month at Tampere university campus in the city centre (Kalevantie). The circle is open to anyone so feel free to join but please note that they make a pause in the food delivery until Spring 2020.

They do have some rice and pasta in their shop and many other cool stuff like juice, flours, eggs, but for bigger quantities they recommend their partner, the organic wholesale Tietavainen

All needed to do is fill up a from on their website and create an account for the webstore.

To order in bulk with Tietavainen you also need to create another account on Tietavainen webstore, and inform them that you are a new member in Tampiiri (this way you are able to preorder products from Tietavainen as well as Tampiiri, and Tietavainen will deliver your order at Tampere university once a month without delivery fees). If you choose that solution, it is important to add a marking (piiritunnus) called “piiri-TAMY-uta” when creating your account for Tietäväinen.

Tampiiri membership costs is 5€ per year, plus the ordering fee per order (0,50€ for less than 20€ orders / 1€ for more than 20€ orders). Once you have your account, log in to the site and you will be able to see the products and their prices, and add them to your shopping cart. Be careful when making the pre-order, so that the amounts of the products are correct. After you’ve made your pre-order, you will receive a successful order email. Your order is binding and will be paid in cash when you pick your stuff.

You don’t need to commit to Tampiiri. You make your order when you want to, but you need to follow the schedules. Ordering is possible monthly during 2 weeks and delivery happens certain days (once every month).

Tampiiri is also a place to meet people and share nice moments when they organize events. Tampiiri is based on voluntary work, so they need volunteers on each pick-up day to help organize the orders.

4. Buying online

Ekolo - It’s an Helsinki store with over 2000 products located in Hakaniemi. Their wholesale in Lämmittäjänkatu is just a warehouse of a few of the import products for retail customers.
If you have a company (they need a VAT-nimber to register you), you can order from their wholesale. Pasta and cereals are not available in bulk just yet, but nuts, dried fruits etc can be ordered in bulk.
The staff will generate a password for you, and you can order right away.
The chilled products must be ordered separately and the transportation cost to Tampere is 19 euros for chilled products and 19 euros for ambient products. If the order exceed 300 euros for ambient and 250 euros for chilled products, the delivery is free of charge. The delivery is to your home.

Fiksuruoka - Some organic items can be ordered from that site as well.

Tietavainen - Good choice. Working with Tampiiri (see before).

Bon appétit!!

A big thanks to Janna Lumiruusu, and Jenny P. and Krista Willman from Tampiiri, and Linda Gurney for helping me gathering information for this search!

This article was published on Sept. 17th, 2019. 1st update on Sept. 26th 2019. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to suggest something.