Speick Blog

Genuine hand craftsmanship at an altitude of 1,800 metres

Today, the Speick plant is still the most important component of our company philosophy. Its harvest is in itself an art form that only few alpine farmers have mastered. The wild Speick plant is still harvested today at an altitude of around 1,800 metres in the UNESCO Nockberge Biosphere Park in Carinthia – lovingly collected in the hands of the local alpine pasture farmer families stretching back for generations. The family farm has been taken over by the next generation and with it, the Speick harvest – by hand, as it has been for centuries. The Speick harvest provides the alpine pasture farmers with important financial security while also continuing in a tradition that has lasted for decades.

This living tradition allows us to offer unique products with the extract of the valuable Speick plant with no equivalent anywhere in the world. The importance of this close relationship with our alpine farmers and our Speick plant can also be seen in the fact that, after the harvest, the dried plants are personally picked up by our managing directors, Wikhart and Valentin Teuffel, who brings them to our company headquarters in Leinfelden-Echterdingen. This is an annual highlight for Speick Naturkosmetik and the Carinthian alpine farmers.

Highly innovative – fair trading and integrated sustainability

Alongside respect to tradition, there is one other thing that inspires our family business above all else: innovation. The two terms tradition and innovation are by no means opposites. Quite the contrary: sometimes it is innovation that picks up a tradition and revives it.

For us, innovation is directly connected to our practices of fair trading and sustainability. We see sustainability as more than just natural products. As such, we strive to maintain the highest possible quality standards with COSMOS Standard certification. We are a driver of innovative packaging concepts and base our
ecological business practices on regionality. As such, environmental and social criteria play a key role in the selection our raw materials and packaging. We aim to principally work with partners from the region to avoid long transport distances, as well as to strengthen the local economic system.

Sustainability in our own four walls

Even in our own production site we use the available resources with the greatest possible care. We generate the majority of the electricity we use with a photovoltaic system. To cover the rest of our electricity requirements, we use 100% green power. For heating, we use 100% biogas.

Furthermore, our aim is to consistently save energy in all company divisions. For instance, since 2008 we have been able to reduce our energy consumption by approximately two thirds. We believe sustainability begins with us.

The awards received in recent years, including the German Sustainability Award, the CSR Award of the German Federal Government and the “Sustainable Producer” award from the Verbraucher Initiative e.V. (The German Consumers Association), endorse our sustainable, successful corporate philosophy.

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