CSA-Clinic Supported Agriculture

Eating is an essential part of treatment at Buchinger Wilhelmi, because building up your food intake after fasting as well as the quality of the soups and juices during fasting
are of vital importance to its therapeutic success.

To ensure that we offer our guests high-quality food and unique flavours while at the same time fulfilling our responsibility to society, we have set up the project CSA Buchinger Wilhelmi. CSA stands for Clinic Supported Agriculture (derived from the common principle of Community Supported Agriculture), with the suffix “Ethical Food” to make it clear what this partnership with local farmers is all about – sustainably produced food that meets the highest ethical standards.

We have selected several small, independent farmers in accordance with a set of strict criteria and brought them together in CSA Buchinger Wilhelmi. Our permaculturist Alejandro Orioli provides the project with ideas, planting designs (based on permaculture design principles) and seeds. To ensure that only the very best food is used in our kitchens, the farmers are also supported directly in the fields by Javi Luque from Coin. He helps out every day with the field work, tests the quality of the produce and brings only the very best ingredients to our chef Fernando Sánchez in the kitchen. However, this new organisation means much more than simply a “change of supplier” for our clinic and for our guests.

The new perspective it gives us and our direct connection to the topic of nutrition are much more important. We know where our produce comes from, for example we know who cultivates our beetroot through the season and makes sure that it is delivered to our kitchen with a great deal of care.
It allows us as a company to develop a deep relationship with food, enabling our chefs in the kitchen to be in constant dialogue with the farmers in the field.
We support local farmers who put the focus on improving the ground and soil rather than impoverishing it with pesticides and monoculture. We want to pass on this experience to you, dear guests, with great tasting food, freshness and quality. And maybe you will get the chance to watch our farmers at work at close hand yourselves – because we are planning to organise tours to the farms.

Video: How we set up our own organic food supply chain