Tradition and innovation at Gut Drült

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

Gut Drült has been in the hands of the Rumohr family for over 500 years. You were the 16th in line to inherit the estate from your father in 2017. How are you transferring your traditional business into the modern age?

Frederik von Rumohr:

When I took over the farm, the fields were leased and the forest was managed by someone else. I grew up on Drült, have strong ties to the land and knew that I wanted to manage the farm myself again. At the same time, Drült, with just under 300 hectares, is actually too small today to exist independently. I therefore thought about how I could use the land and buildings myself without becoming a museum village or hobby farm. The business should be profitable on its own and I had to change a few things to achieve this.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

How did you go about this?

Frederik von Rumohr:

On the one hand, I was very lucky that the business came from a full lease. There was therefore no machinery or established processes. The tenant in turn supported my concept and only gave me back as much land as I needed, but continued to farm the rest, which ensured financial predictability.

But above all, in the first three years I had two farm managers, Niels Odefey and since then Peter Nöhrnberg, who were very experienced and, above all, very entrepreneurial in developing and implementing ideas with me. As I have a completely different job and live with my family in Hamburg during the week, that was and is crucial.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

So basically you set up Drült like a start-up. What is your concept?

Frederik von Rumohr:

My concept is based on the idea that agriculture has become far removed from the consumer in recent decades, driven by an environment geared towards world market prices. Who looks at the label in the supermarket to see where the grain for the flour for baking cakes was threshed? In most cases, it's not even in the small print.

Accordingly, I want to run a farm that produces directly for end consumers. Where the production method is so comprehensible and plausible that it is a pleasure to use the product and you pay the - higher - price with a smile because you can understand its composition and find it appropriate. So we are trying to move away from primary production towards integrated agriculture and refinement.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

These are exciting terms: How is that to be understood - what do integrated and refined mean in this case?

Frederik von Rumohr:

Refinement means that we don't sell what grows directly on our land, for example wheat in the field or a beech tree in the forest, as grain or logs to a wholesaler, but process it ourselves as far as possible. The grain feeds our chickens, the trunks are turned into carpentry products in our own sawmill, the crown into pre-dried logs for the stove or fireplace.

Integrated means that on the one hand we try to use as much as possible and on the other hand we try to have as little waste as possible. This means that our free-range chickens not only live twice as long as conventional organic chickens. They are gutted ready for cooking in our own slaughterhouse with as little stress as possible. Everything that is not of interest to humans is dried on the farm and sold as first-class food for dogs.

But it also means, for example, that we use land multiple times wherever possible: Our chickens graze partly under orchard trees to protect them from hawks. We process the fruit as a matter of course. On another part of the land, the chickens graze in a willow plantation. The goshawk protection there becomes a renewable energy source in the form of wood chips.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

Let's perhaps talk more specifically about the chickens. What is life like for chickens on the Gut Drült organic free-range farm? Can critical meat consumers who are concerned about sustainability prepare their chicken fricassee with your chicken meat without hesitation?

Frederik von Rumohr:

I like eating meat, but in recent years I've noticed that I've been eating less and less because the thought of how this meat was produced made me uncomfortable. By a lucky coincidence, shortly after taking over the farm in 2017, I found a farm manager who had spent 20 years developing a way of fattening poultry that still inspires me today: the animals only spend the first few weeks as chicks in a heated barn, after which they live entirely on pasture, even in winter.

They are fed, but deliberately a little too little, so that they are motivated to run around on the larger than average pastures, to peck and find their own food. This not only produces exceptionally good meat without the use of any medication, but above all we have the impression that the chickens are happy. And if we accept that many people still want to eat meat, then I believe we have an obligation to produce this meat in the most species-appropriate way possible.

So you can prepare your chicken fricassee from Drülter chickens with a clear conscience - or you can use the fricassee we have already prepared in a jar.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

When people walk around your farm, they notice the beehives - is honey part of your concept?

Frederik von Rumohr:

Yes and no, we don't sell the honey. Instead, we offer sponsorships for bee pastures. I live half in the city and have noticed how many people, especially in the city, are concerned about insect mortality and bees in particular. This concern is completely justified. The numbers are decreasing dramatically for a variety of reasons. We have therefore sown areas that are being converted to organic farming with special pasture mixtures. This not only looks beautiful, it also provides food for insects and protection for wild animals. By donating 50 euros each, the sponsors are protecting an area in this way and doing something good for the animals. In return, they - or those given the gift of a sponsorship - not only receive a nice certificate, but also a jar of honey, the harvest of their own area, so to speak.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

Does this type of refinement also work with wood - that's actually the original material per se, isn't it?

Frederik von Rumohr:

Schleswig-Holstein is extremely sparsely wooded, especially in the north. Because timber traders calculate in large units, you quickly have to rely on your own cut just happening to fit into a larger delivery. The fact that this wood then goes to the Far East, almost sold off, to be made into furniture, was doubly unpleasant.

Instead, we have purchased a sawmill with which we can saw boards and beams from logs, which carpenters from the region can then collect directly from us in dry storage. It's even clearer when it comes to firewood. It has always bothered me that we buy firewood in orange bags made of non-combustible plastic at the supermarket. The reason is simply that these bags are machine-fillable.

Instead, we have designed nice, flammable cardboard boxes into which we fill a "one-evening quantity". We dry the wood with the residual heat from a biogas power plant on the farm and it is sorted for stoves, fireplaces and as chips for lighting. Nothing is left over, the trunk doesn't get dirty and the box looks nice next to the stove or fireplace.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

In most modern agricultural businesses, farmers have largely lost contact with the end consumer, many of them by necessity go for quantity, often in favor of quality. It's different with you. You focus on animal welfare, high quality products and direct sales via your own webshop (www.gut-druelt.de). How does that work for you? Are you "competitive"?

Frederik von Rumohr:

We are in a niche, I am very aware of that. Drült sells its products to people who understand our approach and appreciate that it requires a lot of manual work by excellently trained and reasonably paid employees. But this niche is getting bigger, I can clearly see that. In many cases, regional is already more important than organic, consumers are showing a genuine interest in the origin and production conditions in agriculture, forestry and especially livestock farming, they come to the farm and have everything explained to them. We benefit directly from this.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

Looking at your course correction, the various new concepts and - allow me to say this - your hustle and bustle, you manage to reconcile sustainability, tradition, innovation and even profitability. We are curious: what are you planning next?

Frederik von Rumohr:

One often results from the other. The next product will be porridge. My parents called it oatmeal and we didn't find it very appealing as children. Now it's called porridge and my children are crazy about it. We are developing different compositions, including dried apples and pears from the orchards or even berries and nuts from the park.

Or another example of the integrated approach described earlier: in future, we will produce bird food from the seeds of the plants in the bee pastures, while the leaves and stems will remain in the field as winter protection for the animals.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

Finally, a personal question: you live in Hamburg with your wife and four children, but are often together at Gut Drült: what is special about the region, what are your recommendations for guests and visitors?

Frederik von Rumohr:

Angeln is a blessed land for me. It's just 90 minutes from Hamburg, but it's still a bit of an insider tip. The slightly hilly landscape offers wonderful views and never ceases to surprise. The Schlei and Baltic Sea offer unlimited opportunities for sport and recreation. Culinary-wise, we still have some climbing to do, but it's getting there... The home-smoked fish from Föh in Kappeln is always great, preferably in a roll and right by the harbor with a view of the Schlei.

Engel & Völkers Schleswig-Holstein:

Dear Mr. von Rumohr, thank you very much for letting us be your guest and for the interview. We wish you continued success in realizing your plans!

Would you like to find out more? Click here to go to the Website of Gut Drült.