Biohof Kaemena – Organic Farming with Passion
For over 600 years, the Kaemena farm has been family-owned, and today the 10th generation is growing up on the grounds of the farm in Bremen’s Blockland. During our visit, the family shared what makes this traditional business so unique – and why organic farming is simply non-negotiable for them.
The path to becoming an organic farm
Six centuries of history – including 300 years as a dairy farm – is nearly unimaginable. Yet this is the legacy the Kaemena family can look back on. Visitors to the farm will discover traces of the past at every corner and quickly sense how deeply rooted the family is in both their land and its story.
Holding onto tradition and established structures doesn’t mean standing still. On the contrary, the Kaemenas live by one guiding principle: “We want to maintain a balance between what we have inherited and what we can shape for the future.”
One result of this vision is the complete transition to organic farming. Since 2002, the Kaemenas have focused entirely on organic agriculture and now produce milk, cheese, (drinking) yogurt, and ice cream – all in certified organic quality.
Cows, culture, and culinary delights
At the Kaemena farm, the doors are always open for those interested in sustainable agriculture and food production. As a demonstration farm for organic agriculture, they offer guided tours for young and old and provide a behind-the-scenes look at the operation.
At Kaemena’s, the distance from the cowshed to processing is short. Raw and pasteurized milk can be tapped directly at the on-site milk vending machine – the Brunimat. Cheese is produced just a few meters from the barn and is available from the 24-hour vending machine. There you’ll also find fruity drinking yogurts and delicious natural yogurt. The ice cream brand Snuten lekker, well-known and loved far beyond Bremen, is also produced on the farm and can be enjoyed in the farm café.
With or without a guided tour, a visit to the organic farm in the Blockland is always worthwhile, because alongside the dairy cows and their calves, the farm also hosts changing exhibitions by artists from various genres. This turns the entire farm into a place of inspiration that certainly provides motivation and creative energy not only to the Kaemenas themselves.
From udder to ice cream cup
For many, Snuten lekker ice cream alone is reason enough to take a (bike) trip to the Kaemena farm. The dairy ice cream, for which the farmers spent around a year and a half researching the German ice cream market, owes its special taste not only to the fresh milk from their own herd but also to other high-quality ingredients, all in certified organic quality.
But it’s not just the organic ingredients that make this ice cream from Bremen’s Blockland unique. In addition to classics like chocolate and lemon, Snuten lekker is available in varieties such as poppy seed, quark-sesame, or pumpkin seed. While some flavors are available year-round, others change with the season. In spring, there’s rhubarb ice cream; in May comes elderflower; and plum marks the start of autumn.
The desire for a holistic and sustainably managed business is particularly evident in the ice cream production process. Starting with the cows, which have ample space both indoors and out and are allowed a parental leave period after giving birth to their calves, continuing through to the direct processing and marketing of the products, and even the environmentally conscious generation of wind power and the use of rain and groundwater to cool the ice cream machines. Here, every step is taken with the environment in mind – to create a great product and farm in harmony with animals and nature.
For the Kaemena family, sustainability and organic are not just trendy terms or a marketing concept: “For us, organic means treating our limited natural resources – water, soil, air – with care. We firmly believe that we no longer need chemical fertilizers, pesticides, preservatives, flavor enhancers, artificial colorings, or genetically modified plants to live well.”
Connected through region and passion
For several years, the Kaemena family has relied on packaging solutions from Green Box. Because truly great organic ice cream needs truly great sustainable packaging – especially when served to go.
A fixed part of the packaging range at the farm includes ice cream cups in various sizes and ice cream spoons from the Green Box range. Our napkins and drinking straws are also used daily. The products used are made from recycled or recyclable materials. Many are even biodegradable. And they are always fully climate-compensated – from the resources used, to production and distribution, and transport to the dairy farm. This makes our packaging solutions a perfect fit for the philosophy of this farming family:
"Green Box, with its location in Bremen, is not only interesting to us as a regional supplier. Of course, we benefit from short delivery routes due to the proximity, but what’s even more important to us is that Green Box provides packaging that meets our high sustainability standards.”