The ‘Weizer Schafbauern’ – sheep farmers from the Weiz area of Styria – have taken everything into their own hands as a cooperative, from primary production through to processing, refining and marketing. They have received many awards for their initiative, as well as setting quality standards and co-founding the ‘GenussRegion Weizer Berglamm & Schaf’. Commercial success was never an end in itself, and was only possible because the cooperative did not try to place itself above its members. The preservation of small-scale farming and the cultural landscape together with the culinary comeback of lamb in regional cuisine followed naturally. With cohesion, innovative spirit and a bit of stubbornness, the members of the cooperative have turned the ‘discontinued sheep model’ into a model for the future – for the farms, for the region, but also to show how farming cooperatives can work. All this in sheep’s clothing – but no wolf.
Weizer Schafbauern eGen.mbH, Region Weiz, from 1995
