Gut Eichethof

A stroke of luck

Gut Eichethof has been around now for a few hun­dred years – long be­fore the now om­nipresent “sus­tain­abil­ity” was even born. The word Eichet comes from “eich (oak)” and “et” (a re­mote place), thus, oak trees that were sit­u­ated in a re­mote place. In the early days, the es­tate served the cast­le as it once again does today: as a source of food and en­ergy, a cen­turies-old prin­ci­ple of sus­tain­abil­ity, which was just com­mon sense back then.

We are participants of the “Baye­ri­sches Kul­tur­land­schafts­pro­gramm” (KULAP, Bavarian Pro­gramme for Agri­cultural Land­scape).

Therefore, we receive fund­ing for the listed measures.

Sustainability as a principle

In 1992, when the future of Gut Eichet­hof was being re­con­sid­ered, the ob­jec­tive was clear. The es­tate should once again be an autarchy, mak­ing the cast­le en­sem­ble an agri­cul­tur­ally and en­er­get­i­cally in­de­pen­dent en­tity – just as in old times. Sus­tain­abil­ity as a gen­eral prin­ci­ple was self-evident.

Eichethof belongs to “Naturland”

Since 1993, Gut Eichethof has been a mem­ber of the farm­ing asso­ci­a­tion Natur­land e.V., a net­work of or­ga­nic farm­ers whose com­mon credo is a holis­tic approach and en­vi­ron­men­tally sus­tain­able eco­nomic ac­tiv­ity. The Fed­eral Min­istry of Agri­culture ac­cepted the es­tate into the “Öko­land­bau Offen­sive” (Or­ga­nic Agri­culture Of­fen­sive) in 2002 as an ex­em­plary farm. The farm also re­ceived the dis­tinc­tion of practic­ing ‘sus­tain­able agri­cul­ture fit for the future’ from the DLG (German Agri­cul­tural Society).

Vegetable and fruit

Organic tastes delicious

Just a simple green salad can make our chefs rave – so fresh, so fra­grant, so re­fined in taste.

Gut Eichet­hof is truly a “pur­veyor” to the court when it comes to the cul­ti­va­tion of veg­eta­bles and fruit. All the kitchens at Schloss Hohen­kam­mer get their sup­plies here. This is as fresh and “or­ga­nic” as it gets.

Meat

If meat, then good meat

The same rule applies for the fowl, the Angus cat­tle, the Swabian-Hall pigs on the es­tate that ap­plies for the “veg­eta­rian de­part­ment”. The best bi­o­log­i­cal con­di­tions for the live­stock, all of which are raised hu­manely. All an­i­mals re­ceive the ap­pro­pri­ate amount of ex­er­cise for their spe­cies, and their slaugh­ter is car­ried out as gen­tly as pos­si­ble. Also with re­gard to the farm’s meat prod­ucts, the cas­tle’s kitchens are the pre­ferred customers.

Seed

Grain business as a core business

In reaction to the emphasis on eco­logical agri­cul­ture, a change has oc­curred in grain pro­duc­tion. The focus is no longer on mass pro­duc­tion, but on qual­i­ta­tive­ly de­mand­ing seed pro­duc­tion – the new core busi­ness. Seed prod­uced by Gut Eichet­hof is a bi­o­log­i­cally first-class prod­uct for cus­tomers, who, in turn, run high qual­i­ty and en­vi­ron­men­tally friendly agri­cultural op­e­ra­tions.

Today, Gut Eichethof is one of Germany’s largest pro­duc­ers of seed. In Bavaria, it is ac­tu­ally num­ber one.

Forest

A forest with a future

Natural regeneration and mixed forests are the cha­rac­te­ris­tics of a for­ward-look­ing sil­vi­cul­ture, and both focus on cli­mate change. Nat­u­ral re­gen­er­a­tion, i.e. self-prop­a­ga­tion or pol­li­na­tion, and more re­sis­tant mixed forests with­stand in­creased storms and heat waves far bet­ter than vul­ner­a­ble spruce cul­tures. In the forests of Gut Eichet­hof there are 15 dif­fer­ent species of trees grow­ing in the area’s var­i­ous soils and lo­ca­tions. A beau­ti­ful mixed forest also pro­vides more eco­nom­i­cally valu­able tim­ber, re­sult­ing in bet­ter sales. And, last but not least, sem­i­nar vis­i­tors es­pe­cially love to relax un­der the beech trees.

PS: The reception area and hotel rooms in Schloss Hohen­kam­mer’s new guest­house were all con­structed out of beau­ti­ful oak wood from our own forests.

Fine brandies

More than 1,000 fruit trees and bushes grow on the es­tate and all these fruits are avail­able in liquid form. But more than that – they are pure, dis­tilled en­joy­ment. Ini­tially en­joyed as apples, pears, quinces and plums, they make up our proud as­sort­ment of brandies, five of them “bar­rique” (ma­tured and stored in Ital­ian oak bar­rels). Some of these spir­its are made of fruit grown else­where, pro­vided the qual­ity is right.

Vinegar and oil and more

The brandies are complemented by our se­lec­tion fine, aro­matic vine­gars. Again, you can choose from an exten­sive range, includ­ing a rare tomato vine­gar. As with our brandies, only the best raw ma­te­ri­als are used. You can enjoy the pumpkin seeds from our own organ­i­cally grown crops as high-qual­ity oil as well as roasted in many deli­cious flavors.

Independence

Net products, which are sustainably de­signed and op­er­ated, create an ad­van­tage that is rarely ad­dressed: self-sufficiency.

There are apartments for em­ploy­ees and trainees on the cas­tle grounds and Gut Eichet­hof. In ad­di­tion, var­i­ous com­mer­cial en­ter­prises, such as “Markt­ge­sell­schaft der Natur­land­be­triebe”, “Natur­land Lan­des­ver­band Bayern” and “Inter­Saat­zucht GmbH” are lo­cated on Gut Eichet­hof.