Antidote to online: Germany’s one-stop wellness shops get ready for Christmas
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Reformhaus retains an unmatched selection of tea and slippers but is morphing to stay competitive. Wellness, organics and sustainability have become buzzwords in modern consumer marketing, but the mainstreaming of “green” lifestyle is creating some challenges for the German retailers that pioneered these products.
![[Deborah Cole]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/uploads/2024/05/31/Deborah_Cole_2.png?width=75&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
As the country gears up for the holiday shopping season, the Reformhaus cooperative, a long-established promoter of homegrown health and beauty in the retail sphere, is morphing – gently – to stay competitive against incursions from discounters, the bite of inflation and shifting consumer habits.
![[Cathrin Engelhardt stands posing in her shop]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/666cd489865584dbf22d1ca1223b48d4b55a7ac6/116_72_5414_3499/master/5414.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
The unique mix of organic food store, nutritional supplement shop, alternative medicine purveyor, no-additives cosmetic source and knitwear emporium has been a star in the German commerce firmament for generations. With its roots in the 19th-century Lebensreform (life reform) movement, which embraced nature and rejected industrialisation, Reformhaus stores are independently operated either as individually owned stores or regional chains, but they come together to centralise purchasing and marketing.
![[Packets of fruit and nuts on shelves]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e648d322875a08113dee29cdefd85f6921804673/0_0_5304_7952/master/5304.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
With an unmatched tea and slipper selection, the human-scale outlets also conjure a Gemütlichkeit (warmth and good cheer) increasingly rare in today’s world of big-box stores and online shopping. “We’re somewhere between a chemist, a beauty shop, a mom-and-pop store and a petrol station, where you can quickly pick up a few things you need on your way home,” said Cathrin Engelhardt, the Hamburg-based CEO of the largest chain of Reformhäuser in northern Germany, with 36 locations.
