Vegetable sticks to robot dogs: Hesse and North Rhine-Westphalia inspire at Grüne Woche

Cutting potatoes and setting the table is on the agenda for the morning at the Hessen Stage in Hall 6.2a. A school class is frying homemade vegetable sticks and pancakes with Hessian apples together with TV chef Reiner Neidhar. He is being assisted by three country women.

Most of the ingredients come from the exhibitors at the Grüne Woche. The elementary school children fortify themselves with apple-orange-pumpkin-melon juice from the Walther family winery in Bruchköbel. The eggs are from the Franzenhof, where owner Anja Betz sells cookies, cakes, egg liqueur, and baking mixes fresh from the farm at her stand.

Healthy eating is the focus of the activities organized by the Münster Food Policy Council, which will be visiting Hall 5.2a in the NRW Pavilion for two days. The initiative aims to encourage children and young people to cook. Ulrike Schutter teaches them simple vegetarian dishes such as vegetable patties with yogurt dip. Her observation: “I don't like it” is not an option when children cook for themselves. They are so proud that they even enjoy vegetables.

Horses and traveling merchants

This year, Münsterland is North Rhine-Westphalia's partner region at the Grüne Woche. In this region in the north of the state, high-tech meets tradition. Digital Hub Münsterland, an association of more than 300 companies, is showcasing robotics solutions for agriculture. These include a “robot dog” that helps muck out horse stables. After years of development, the company Zauberzeug and its cooperation partner Wasserbauer have presented a fully autonomous, AI-controlled horse manure collection robot. The robot is about the size of a dog and equipped with a brush where a “normal” dog would have its head. The device has been on the market since 2023.

It is no coincidence that this idea comes from the Münsterland region. With more than 100,000 horses, it is one of the regions with the highest number of horses in Europe. Representing the region in Berlin is the Warendorf State Stud, which celebrates its 200th anniversary this year. Anyone feeling inspired can test their skills directly on a riding simulator. With a wooden horse's head but no legs, the simulator realistically replicates the movements of a horse's body.

Another genuine Münsterland tradition can be discovered at Grüne Woche: the so-called Kiepenkerle – travelling traders who take their name from the basket on their backs and who travelled across the country with their wares in the 19th and 20th centuries. Numerous monuments have been erected in their honour, including in Münster's old town. They are a fixture at folk festivals, and so too at Grüne Woche. Among them is even a Kerlin, as Rebekka Hinckers from Münsterland e.V. explains.