Food Touring
In late Stockholm has started to bloom as a green-minded town. Sustainable is a state of being. Eco is king. Scandinavian Preppy retailers are recycling.
The clothing brand Boomerang is breathing new life into recycled pieces of garment (known as the Boomerang Effect), fashion label Filippa K has its own second hand brand store, gigantic IKEA swops furniture and Electrolux designs home appliance out of vac from the sea. What comes to food — there are now an array of farmer’s markets and superfood chains in the city, as the demand of eco conscious, locally produced food has rather become a matter of course than a trend status during the past two years.
Oddapp’s Farmshop iPhone app (Gårdsbutiker 2010), is a local expert in green food touring not only in Stockholm, but in the whole country of Sweden. It guides you to the local farmer’s markets and farmshops who sell eco-produce. Oddapp is founded by Pippi Engstedt and Calle Edström, both living in Stockholm. Pippi is a photographer, a writer and a journalist while Calle works in the film industry. Oddapp has produced 3 travel related applications: Farmshops (Gårdsbutiker 2010), Guesthouses (Vandrarhem 2010) and Farmhouses (Bo på lantgård 2010) — one completes the other. Pippi has published several guidebooks during the past 10 years and the iPhone app came of an idea to create something new for the mobile rurban public
“Stockholmers head out to the countryside during weekends and holidays with iPhones in their backpockets. There is a foodwave sweeping through the whole country, as Sweden is becoming the New Culinary Nation*. People are going back to their roots and realise the value of local. It is popular to tag along to granmas brunch on Sundays and buy ingredients direct from the local source on the go. Our farmshop app is a fun way to explore a neighbourhood either in a city or in the countryside and at the same time learn about the origin of food.”
The trend agency Future Laboratory was recently in Stockholm. They asked Pippi to join a group of 30 biking spotters touring the city using the farmshop iPhone app as a wayfinder.
“It was a lot of fun. We visited two popular foodshops ‘Eat! Ekoaffären’ and ‘Matdistriktet’ in the Vasastan area. Eat! is a eco-supermarket where you can buy eco-friendly household articles and kitchenware apart from food and sweets from their coffee-shop-in-shop. Matdistriktet has take-away lunch, they do catering and take special orders. They only buy the ordered amount of meat from the nearby farmers as the rest would end up in a compost. For inspiration, I recommend jazzing along their Spotify playlist while you’re cooking dinner at home!”
Oddapp are designing new apps for 2011.
*A survey carried out by Synovate on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture shows that over 80 per cent of those questioned regard food and culinary experiences to be an important part of their holiday. Three in four say that a culinary experience in the countryside can be one of the reasons for going somewhere on holiday, and half of those questioned think or already know that they plan to have some kind of culinary experience in the countryside during their next summer holiday. Interest in rural areas, experiences and the values to be found in the countryside has increased. More and more people are discovering rural areas – for the experiences and to enjoy the resources these areas have to offer.
