The fact that Poinger Marktplatz with the house number 5A still housed a tanning salon a few months ago can no longer be guessed at. Instead, opposite the entrance, a long, dark counter with a cake display is emblazoned, with 68 food dispensers, shelves and chairs, sideboards and benches lining the room to the left and right. The displays and shelves are still empty. All sorts of people are scurrying through the room: Christa Bauer-Germeier and Markus Brennhäußer are hammering away at something that will later become a table. A few helpers are waiting around – hygiene training is about to start in the doctor’s office opposite. Meanwhile, the two girls Josefa and Linea are sitting on an expansive antique chest of drawers and are waiting for their mother Veronika Molin, who is talking to Annika Krätschmer with her sibling in a sling.
Josefa and Linea are regulars in the store – they are the daughters of the chairman of the supervisory board, Veronika Molin.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
The 31-year-old Krätschmer is actually constantly in conversation. Again and again someone approaches her: Where is this supposed to go? When will that be delivered? Who’s coming to help tomorrow? Together with Tobias Fuchs, Krätschmer will run the Poinger unpackaged store “Bunte Bohne” – she the market, he the café. After an unpackaged shop opened in Zorneding in February 2020, the Poinger initiative is the second in the Ebersberg district. This morning, the 45-year-old fox still has appointments away from home, until then the threads of the work in the shop come together in Krätschmer’s hands alone.
A good two weeks before the opening, she seems relaxed – meanwhile the big day is imminent: On Saturday, June 25th, the “Bunte Bohne” will open its doors for the first time to customers and coffee and cake enthusiasts at the same time as the Poinger street festival.
Things don’t always go according to plan, but there is a solution for every problem
However, Krätschmer has retained his composure, even if things don’t always go according to plan: the opening date was actually once in May, then in mid-June. Small problems kept popping up. For example, the food dispenser: The coffee beans are also to be stored there, which customers can fill up as they wish. However, these are not airtight, which should be the case with proper coffee storage. “One of the great things about the project and our team is that someone always comes up with a solution,” says Krätschmer. The same here: self-made magnetic covers now protect the coffee beans from oxygen.
Two weeks before the opening, not all electrical devices had been delivered.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
In the case of delivery problems, it looks a bit trickier with solutions. Because the global bottlenecks, especially with electronic devices, did not stop at bulk shopping. But why get angry seriously and for a long time about something that you don’t have at hand anyway?
So on the opening day, not everything will be exactly as Krätschmer, Fuchs and the rest of the cooperative originally wanted. However, that’s not a bad thing. Because if you stay with the “Bunte Bohne” squad for a while and watch them tinkering, organizing and chatting, you’ll notice: This is about something else, namely the goal of creating a sustainable store, a place where environmentally conscious people hardly have to make any compromises and yet there is no dogmatism. This does not require perfection, but a team in which each member contributes the skill that suits him or her best. One that works together creatively and transparently, where everyone pulls together. This is exactly what characterizes the “colorful bean”.
Annika Krätschmer herself reupholstered a few of the seats that had been sold from flats.
(Photo: Christian Endt)
Almost everything in the store is used, self-made or upcycled. Some of the chairs come from house clearances, and Krätschmer reupholstered a few of them. One piece of furniture in the non-food area comes from her, others from Tobias Fuchs or other team members. People from Poing and the surrounding area also regularly handed in all sorts of things: cushions, baskets, containers. Some of them are among the 165 members of the cooperative, others just helped out.
There is no packaging at all, even in a packaging-free shop. “But we have a lot less,” says Krätschmer. They order their goods in large packs, the contents then go into food dispensers, for example, from which customers can fill exactly the amount they need into their own containers – i.e. one large plastic pack for raisins instead of many smaller ones for the end consumer.
The “Bunte Bohne” team also has no shortage of ideas for the time after the opening next Saturday. An online shop is to be established next year and later this year a delivery service for Tobi Fuchs’ homemade pastries from the café.
Opening ceremony with music, demonstrations and tasting on June 25th from 10 am at Marktplatz 5 A in Poing. More info at poing-unverpackt.de.