Flower lollipops and seaweed crispbread from Northern Europe

It was a long winter when Agnese Milberga came up with the idea for her flower lollipops. “I actually started my company, Daba rada, which means ‘created by nature,’ with fruit syrup. In winter, I had nothing to do, so I experimented with making throat lozenges,” says the young woman from southern Latvia. The first ones were still dark brown, but then she developed a transparent recipe using glucose syrup. At first, she added poppy seeds, but now dried flowers turn her lollipops into little works of art—and popular wedding gifts. In Berlin, however, it's not the delicate violets that are the bestsellers. “Men in particular are crazy about the lollipops with hemp leaves, even though I assure them that they have no intoxicating effect,” she says.

Strolling from stand to stand in Hall 8.2, you'll find classics alongside fresh ideas. It smells delicious in Lithuania, where the restaurant serves hearty dishes from the country's cuisine. The menu includes porcini mushroom soup, fried rye bread with cheese sauce, and the national dish Zeppeline, an elongated potato dumpling filled with minced meat. Its shape is modeled after German Zeppelins, which circled the Baltic region as aerial reconnaissance aircraft during World War I.

Crunchy crackers

Next stop: Sweden. Crispbread has a long history here. Its long shelf life helped the population survive famines, and it can be made from grains that thrive in cool climates. Skedvi Bröd keeps this culinary tradition alive with a factory, a restaurant, a market hall, and a restaurant north of Stockholm. Visitors can sample the products at the stand. The taste of the round slices with a hole in the middle is best enjoyed in the classic way with butter and cheese.

The founders of Nordic Seafarm have taken up this tradition. They produce seaweed crispbread, which guests at Grüne Woche have been snapping up for three years now. This is not only because of its spicy taste, which goes just as well with crab cream as it does with Nutella. According to owner Alexander Klimt, customers are enthusiastic about the healthy ingredients in this gluten-free snack. These include omega-3 fatty acids, iodine, and protein. The sugar kelp is grown on the company's own seaweed farm and increases marine biodiversity. On Friday, January 23, 2026, he will present a meatball made from elk and seaweed on the Grüne Woche stage.

Further north is the home of Máret Rávdna Buljo. She belongs to the Sami people and still lives according to their traditions today. Behind a pile of reindeer skins, she tells of the pact her people made with the animals, according to legend. “We protect the reindeer from their natural enemies, such as wolves, and in return they give us their meat, their bones, their fur,” she says. Everything is used, even the brain. “Respect demands it,” she says. “In this way, the animal becomes a part of us.”