We would like to give a warm welcome to Årstiderna who just moved in with us at Stora varvsgatan 6! Just to give you guys a small introduction to our new friends we decided to sit down and interview Rachel Seow Sosa, CEO at Årstiderna.
Rachel Seow Sosa
Årstiderna is a company based in Denmark that offers 100% organic and sustainable meal boxes, produce and groceries. They are founded on the idea about sustainable food, sustainable food production and high quality groceries.
History
It all began in Denmark back in 1999 when a farmer and a chef decided to pair up and start collective farming together. Locals showed an interest in the project and started to bring home vegetables from the farm in small boxes. As more and more people wanted vegetables, the expansion began and new products and even whole meals became available. The initial thought was just to deliver healthy, tasty produce to more Danes but nowadays Årstiderna (Aarstiderne) is the dominating meal box company in Denmark.
In 2004 Årstiderna started to deliver their fruit and vegetable boxes in Sweden. At this point meal boxes were still very rare but in 2011 they started delivering their meal boxes as well in Sweden. Since sustainability is highly valued to them, deliveries were, and still are, a bit of a challenge sometimes. Årstiderna is always working towards better ways to produce and deliver food.
Årstiderna has two farms of their own where they also practice some experimental cultivation, for example trying to preserve types of vegetables that otherwise wouldn’t exist. Their farms also function as workplaces for the Danish employees at Aarstiderne. The two farms are however much too small to provide the produce for all of Årstidernas customers. Therefore they collaborate with organic (and often biodynamic) farms all over Denmark and the rest of Europe, many of whom have a family tradition of organic farming and deep knowledge in producing the best quality vegetables and fruits. Årstiderna plans to start collaborating with Swedish organic farmers as well in the future.
So, who are the individuals sitting here at MEC?
– We are the communication- and marketing team that’s sitting here. We are; Johanna who’s our marketing manager, Nathalie who’s our communication manager, Victoria our web analytics trainee, Kajsa who’s our project manager and me, Rachel CEO. We will be expanding our marketing and communication department so pretty soon there will be a few more on the e-commerce and event side. Now and then we will also get visitors from our customer service team, who are either sitting in Denmark at the moment or working from home, so that we can have kickoffs here. We are really in that state now where we will be more people, we haven’t even filled up these chairs yet, so that is what we’ll be doing during the rest of this year!
Why did you choose to sit at Media Evolution City?
– I have always heard that there’s a lot of dynamic here, many interesting people and also, of course, I have experienced The Conference. So I just think that it fits Årstidernas brand really well. We really enjoy meeting and interacting with different people, so we didn’t want to sit at a location where we wouldn’t be able to do that. It just felt like a great match.
Last but not least, what is the best thing about working at Årstiderna?
– Two things: One is that all of the people that I have met at Årstiderna are extremely talented and competent. They are just wonderful people as colleagues. The other thing is that you can’t help but fall in love with the products. To get to take part of all of the amazing vegetables and learn new things about how they are produced, what strange types that exist and learn about vegetables or fruits that you’ve never even heard of before. It really enriches life! Inspiration is a good keyword, you get inspiration both from your colleagues but also from the actual products. You get to feel inspired almost all the time, so that’s probably the best thing.
Want to visit Årstiderna? You’ll find them on the second floor on Stora Varvsgatan 6. Up the stairs to the right, then to the left. Their office is located in the corner of the pentry!
You can also visit them at www.arstiderna.com
