Newsletter #24

Dear all,

Before the year turns into a new one, we would like to inform you in detail and honestly about the current situation at Bioase.

2024 has been a turbulent and difficult year for the vast majority of people. It is not easy to look into the future with confidence, especially from a global perspective. In the microcosm of Bioase we have to say that 2024 has unfortunately been a very bad year financially. Both the number of our customers and our memberships declined significantly, as did our overall turnover. The most commonly cited reason was moving out of Neukölln and Berlin, followed by the continuing difficult financial situation. While we’re relieved that the cancellations weren’t caused by our store management, it’s still hard and difficult for us.

We are happy and grateful for all those who continue to come to us, even if it means a detour, more planning and more effort. And we are happy and grateful for all those who support us with their monthly membership fees, even if they no longer come to shop regularly! Every kind of support, every order, every visit and every conversation with you gives us energy and reasons to carry on! We are also happy about the new members of the collective and the team. Little by little we are organising our internal processes and getting better at structuring our meetings, specifying requirements and assigning responsibilities.

However, as much as we would like to acknowledge our successes and progress, and be positive about everything we have and receive from you, it is time to speak out in all seriousness and urgency: Something has to change.

There have been many times in the past when we have told you that things are not all that great and that we are still a long way from where we want to be. We’ve advertised, we’ve promoted, we’ve leafleted, we’ve made changes, we’ve tried events and we’ve reminded you that Bioase can only exist thanks to your purchases. All of this is now facing an existential threat to the Bioase collective.

The general availability of organic products is putting us under the most pressure, especially in combination with the low price policy of discounters, but also of chains in general. On top of this there are changes in Neukölln: the crowd is becoming more international, younger and for the most part lives on their own. These people have a different lifestyle and therefore a different shopping behaviour than, for example, a family with two children and a shared housekeeping. Time efficiency and flexibility are becoming increasingly important. These are all factors that we cannot change.

We naturally ask ourselves: What are we doing wrong? What are we missing? How can we improve? We have certainly made mistakes here and there. In some instances it was a case of accumulating wrong orders, for example in the bread section, and in others we did not meet our own standards, for example in the unpacking procedure. We regret this and hope that these points have not caused some people to stop or reduce coming. If you would like to share your observations, thoughts or suggestions with us, please feel free to do so, as this is the only way we can continue to learn!

Looking to the future, we also wonder how we can keep up in times of digitalisation, fast-moving and convenient trends and individualisation. For us, the Bioase is deliberately a social, analogue place, whose atmosphere, the stories we collect and our everyday encounters cannot simply be uploaded. We also stand for a kind of deliberate “inconvenience” and “extra work”, because for us, change and sustainability don’t come cheaply or easily: All the extra steps, the extra effort, the background research, the search for alternatives, the testing of creative solutions, in fact everything that is required if we truly want to live sustainably and responsibly - we are happy to do all this because we know what we are doing it for. What do you think?

Nevertheless, we are not giving up yet! We still believe in this special place and we still see the potential. The biggest tasks are still ahead of us, or rather, we are in the midst of them: First, we are finally addressing our collective identity. This should have happened much earlier, but there was simply no time or space. The handover of the shop in October 2022 was focused exclusively on the urgent takeover of the current business as it was. A number of essential questions fell by the wayside, such as who exactly are we? What do we stand for, what do we want to communicate, what do we want to change and why, and what do we want to keep? It is clear that we agree on many things intuitively and that many of the values of the previous owners are still valid for us, otherwise we would not have managed the last two years together. However, it is time to find a precise answer to the question of what really defines us and to communicate that answer to the outside world.

At the same time, we need to rethink our concept and our product range. The concept of a full-range store made much more sense at a time when organic food was not yet widely available than it does today. Now you can find Demeter and Bioland products in discount stores and drugstores. For us, this means that we have to refine our range and reduce it at the same time.

We want to focus more on working with small producers. It cannot be ruled out that we will say goodbye to some of the “big players” and offer alternatives from smaller manufacturers. The reasons for this would not only be to differentiate ourselves from others, but would also be in line with our ideal of diversifying markets and supporting direct trade. It would certainly be a gradual process as we want to take our time to research and build relationships.

It would mean radically reducing other parts of the range. Our first ideas are to cut back on all areas of dry goods (i.e. fruit, veg and the cheese counter would remain unaffected!), but particularly on cleaning products, toiletries and refrigerated vegan products. We know that there are some of you members who buy everything from us and only go elsewhere in exceptional circumstances.

For you, dear members, and all our loyal regular customers, we will of course still have your essential basics available! And you will still be able to place special orders. However, if Bioase is to continue to exist in the years to come, we will have to find sustainable answers to current developments and will therefore not be able to meet all needs without limitations.

We will not go through all these processes without you. After all, we would not exist without you! We are currently designing a comprehensive questionnaire that we hope will provide us with answers and trends on current challenges. We plan to launch the survey around mid-January.

Until then, we hope to see many of you in the shop again! Please take the opportunity to pre-order and let us know if you need anything! Let us give you recommendations, think of us when you’re looking for something special, and always come when you’re in the mood for really truly yummy awesome food 😁😁 Right now, to celebrate the end of the year, we’ve got a varying selection of cheeses to melt away (pun intended), great alcoholic sparkling wines from Germany, France and Italy, and not to mention delicious non-alcoholic sparkling treats like Ashley’s homemade Kombucha Special Winter Edition, also available in a 1 litre bottle!

As always, we wish you all the best. Heartfelt thanks to all of you who, despite your own circumstances and concerns, choose Bioase time and time again. And a special welcome to our new members, it’s great to have you here! We hope that you all find time and peace at the end of the year to reflect on what is important for you and your beloved ones, to be grateful for what is there and to draw strength from it to work towards ‘more’ and ‘better’ for everyone. And we hope to have many more years together with you and Bioase!

Thank you. Dearly. ♥️♥️♥️

With this in mind: See you soon at Bioase!

Your collective Bioase

P.S. Today, Saturday, we are open as usual until 6 p.m. 🙂

Otherwise, remember: On Monday, 30.12 we’re open as usual from 9 a.m. til 8 p.m. On Tuesday, 31.12, shortened from 9 a.m. til 2 p.m.

P.P.S. For more ideas on how you can support us beyond shopping, click here https://bioase.berlin/en/faq/