Järvsö Crêperie is a small restaurant company that serves sweet crepes and galettes to guests in a tourist village, Järvsö in the north of Sweden.
The owner, Malin Näsman started the company in 2012 because she longed to spend more time in her home-village and with her family. At the time she commuted to Stockholm and worked as a tv photographer. She had an empty barn on her land and wanted to create a pleasant place. So she opened a creperie in her barn using EURO pallets for furniture and built everything out of old used wood and as cheap as possible.
The Creperie is located halfway between Ljusnan river, which slowly flows by, and Järvsö, where skiers and cyclists switch alternately through the year. The served galettes and sweet crêpes are filled with locally grown products. In the summer, it's the small farm in the village that counts, but in the annexe a bit up the mountain, it is baked in the winter as well. The gravelled outdoor seating area is lined with large brown sacks filled with buckwheat flour. They gossip both about the high raw material ambition and about what constitutes the basis of the galettes. What's inside comes from even closer to home, potatoes from the other side of the bridge, cheese from the local cheese factory and ham from Delsbo, just a few kilometres away. But closest is of course their own, lush kitchen garden that spreads out behind the outdoor terrace, fertilised with leftovers from the restaurant in a cycle as circular as a pancake.
The creperie grows their own ingredients in the kitchen garden, which means that they become self-sufficient in at least 8 ingredients all year round and the garden will also provide the business with flowers and garnishes from May-September. They pickle, freeze, ferment, and dry ingredients during the late summer for the restaurant business on the mountain, which is open Dec-April. Raw materials come from cultivation and harvests from other local producers and the forest of course. The creperie gets blueberry waste from a juice company and produces jam with the waste by adding sugar, syrup and water.
In the garden, the guests can read about the seasonal ingredients used on a board with an annual cycle.
The staff is participating in the sustainable restaurants for example water consumption goes through social sustainability filters. Reasoning and raising awareness among the staff about how to use the clean fine water effectively. The restaurant always has a joint start of the season meeting when they review their sustainability vision, staff routines and work environment. The restaurant works consciously, in several ways, to make visible and talk about young people's mental health in the workplace and every year sponsors an organisation that works on the subject. There is a collaboration with Järvsö gymnasium to which they offer an internship. The activity must have a stated educational mission Provide information that educates and creates understanding for the cycle that is being worked on. It must be made visible in the garden, the shop, the suite and the restaurant. Work takes place all the time to extend the seasons in order to thereby secure work opportunities and create a sustainable workplace for employees.
In the garden, there is a bar/boutique with interior design products. Nothing is sold seasonally, all products must last over time. NO SALE! The creperie primarily looks at used equipment for the kitchen and dining room, preferably locally. Of course, sort garbage.
A dream came through, Quote from Malin Näsman owner of Järvsö Creperie “All my life I have loved to cultivate, work in the soil and watch things grow. The dream has long been to be able to grow more of our own vegetables that we can use in the crêperie. Since the summer of 2019, we have been doing this on land directly adjacent to the crêperie down in the village. A lovely kitchen garden where I can go loose as I want. I love it!”
Case debate questions:
● Is Jarvso Creperie applying any of the ReSOLVE strategies to the circular management of its spaces? Which one and how?
● Give examples of how the business is connected to the local municipality/society
● Why is it important to involve young people in the business?
● How can circular tourism be a business advantage?
