About 30 years ago, organic supermarkets were a Utopian dream and freezers for organic food were a sheer waste of space. There were no pizzas or ready meals because committed organic consumers cooked from scratch. Back then, in the 1990s, Florian Gerull started a wholesale company specialising in just that: organic frozen food from pasta bakes to lemon ice cream.
Ten years later, with more experience under his belt and rising customer demand, the time was right for him to develop his own brand. Biopolar offers a wide range of authentic products which are manufactured responsibly and transparently so that consumers can enjoy them with a clear conscience.
We work with long-standing, artisanal companies that create honest frozen food using traditional regional recipes, patience and love.
We know that organic food isn’t perfect, but we believe it is the best option in terms of quality, traceability and sustainability. We want consumers to make a conscious choice for or against our product. To that end, we share everything we know about our products and our partners transparently and comprehensively – both pros and cons. We ambitiously call this approach our ‘transparency initiative’. For each of our products, we examine four aspects: animal welfare, social responsibility, the environment and transparency in general.
We visit our manufacturers, watch the products being made, check working conditions at their premises and ask countless questions – including critical ones. The foundations for a partnership are only laid once we are happy with everything we have seen and heard.
Our day-to-day work is all about achieving healthy development through real food. Since 2013, we have been operating using a future-oriented business model founded on the Economy for the Common Good. Instead of focusing on competition and maximising profits, we pursue values such as humanity, solidarity and ecological sustainability. We foster partnerships and synergies: collaboration, not competition.
We use a self-organised, holistic organisational model based on holacracy. Each of our employees has several roles in various teams and makes autonomous decisions. This means we share authority and can act quickly and independently. Sometimes, an employee is involved in totally different teams, which promotes their personal development.
Our approach to working hours is just as flexible. For years, we have offered working from home and part-time models as standard. We developed our remuneration model ourselves with input from the whole team. It is transparent, reliable and based on values.
The people behind our products are the real stars. Without our manufacturers, there would quite simply be no Biopolar products. The same is true of our team at the Biopolar office, who identify manufacturers and oversee our partnership with them. To help you gain an honest, transparent picture of us too, we asked them some questions. The gestures below illustrate their answers.
Anke, product strategist and pizza expert
A part-time employee and full-time mum, Anke is a real superwoman. She built up Biopolar and is absolutely dedicated to our values and our team. Anke is a stickler for fine flavour. Thanks to her, each and every Biopolar products tastes authentic, intense and oh-so delicious. We owe our pizzas to her love of Italy.
Diana, expert for ice cream, ready meals and meat-free products
Diana enjoys a meat-free diet and loves our soul food. For her, vegetarian food is more than just a trend which she serves with dedication and professionalism in her marketing work. A keen traveller, she has collected recipes and attended cookery courses all around the world. She is our expert for ready meals from a range of national cuisines. Although she loves healthy food, ice cream is her guilty pleasure.
Funda, expert for pizza snacks and tarte flambée
Funda had a light-bulb moment several years ago. As a young mum, she found herself grappling with allergies caused by industrially produced food. From that point on, the maths whizz became increasingly keen to work in the organic sector, so she made a career change and joined Biopolar. A talented linguist, Funda manages our Italian pizza snacks and French tarte flambée.
Anne, quality manager and poultry expert
It’s easy to despair when faced with all the regulatory requirements for food and the various organisations’ criteria. Anne almost always knows what’s what. She hates meaningless buzzwords on product packaging. A pretty cool quality manager, she always makes her point in a charming fashion. Anne loves sweet and savoury food, so she likes to season dishes to taste.
Kristina, meat and fish expert
Kristina is our resident Doctor Dolittle. As our meat and fish expert, she constantly monitors animal welfare and environmental aspects. A young mum who studied nutrition and domestic science, she primarily buys animal food products from farmers’ markets and organic stores because she knows where they have come from.
