This article presents my research about the followings:
– Where can we buy fresh organic and / or local food in Tampere
– Joining an existing group / piiri to buy organic food in Tampere
– Buying in bulk online
– Labels, agencies
– More... restaurants selection... reduce food waste...

This article was first published on Sept. 2019 and updated Nov. 2021. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to suggest something.

** Short intro - How did it start for me? Feel free to skip if you don’t like travel blogging ** One day, I was traveling to Greece and an old lady at the market was yelling at a young guy. She was selling local organic garlic and onions in a lovely basket. He was selling garlic and onions in a plastic tray, 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 only local organic food is a challenge because of the price and it’s unfair because everybody should have access to top quality food. I’ll explain more in another article about the hidden costs of industrial food that more and more people call toxic food. But in any case, for now, local organic is 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 pesticides and 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...

1. Where can we buy fresh organic and / or local food in Tampere?

As far as I am aware of, in Tammela market (Rekola Farm is selling directly there from July to September) and Kauppahalli is has one shop called Minna Vallius with organic veggies and fruits, mostly from EU (Finland and Italy most of the time).

Ruohonjuuri is mostly a cosmetics shop but you can find there a wide selection of coffees, including mushrooms coffee, chocolate, tea, nuts, lots of different oils, kimchi...

Other than this, nada. Except supermarkets where we all go. There you can find lots of organic stuff but you can forget about local most of the time. CityMarket in Lielahti has the widest selection of organic fruits, veggies, pasta, rice, vegetarian milks, jams, eggs, tomatoes sauces, seeds, hemp products, dairies, juices and even one organic vegetarian frozen pizza. Most of them are branded "Pirkka", a Kgroup brand who’s communicating a lot (and pretty well) about locally sourced food.

(*) 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 for 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.”). Also, just like with cosmetics, "natural" is a very hazy word.

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) (Tursolantie 194, Kangasala).

No farmers market yet in Tampere but some farmers are selling locally of course. For example Haltijan 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, it can be very fine also obviously.

Otherwise, the local farmers network is called Reko. Reko shares on FB only, each farmer what is available each week. The orders are placed on Facebook only. 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".

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

If you like amazing honey, try to find Hÿva Hunajas one. It’s sooo good. They deliver through REKO on FB.

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

We were working on creating an organic food circle ("luomu ruokapiiri") with Rekola farm delivering down town weekly but the project is in standbye.

Rekola farm has also a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) system that is really great. You basically buy shares and get a bag of veggies every two week from July to the end of November. Read more about the CSA here.

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-number 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 (image below)- Great choice of organic food only. Ideal to place order in bulk and save quite a lot of money. Tietavainen will deliver your order at Tampere university once a month. They also offer a selection of fresh, local, organic veggies and fruits from time to time.

5. Labels, agencies

Luomu
Luomuliitto
Luomu Ruokavirasto
ProLuomu

An interesting project is Fusilli’s Living Lab where the objective is "to develop urban food plans within their local contexts to achieve an integrated and safe holistic transition towards healthy, sustainable, secure, inclusive and cost-efficient food systems." (Fusilli)

6. More... restaurants selection... reduce food waste...

If you are really into it, you can also explore restaurants like Gopal, Papu ja Pata, Leo, Kajo, 456 pizza who are integrating as much organic as possible. Associations like Dodo are organizing food waste events.

2 Finnish companies are also doing an amazing job to reduce food waste and are embodying circular economy principles (texts from Sitra):
Fiksuruoka buys surplus food from manufacturers and sells it online to consumers at affordable prices. The company has already reduced food waste by millions of kilograms.
ResQ Club ResQ Club redeems surplus food from restaurants and brings it to consumer’s plates.
Food waste is a serious issue - learn more here.

Be curious, explore the Foodies section of this site!!

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!