FAQ

• Can only members shop at Dr. Pogo?
  • 
    No, anyone can shop with us. Just come on in!
    We don't have a membership model but we do offer a discount card. Click here to learn more.
• What is a collective?
  • 
    In our case, “collective” means that we run the vegan store collectively on a grassroots democratic basis, treating each other as equals. For example, we don't have a boss and we all work for the same wage. You can read about the specific values we share under About us / Values and goals.
• Does Dr. Pogo also sell eggs and cow's milk?
  • 
    No, because Dr. Pogo is a vegan shop. We deliberately do not sell animal products.
• Who is Dr. Pogo?
  • 
    There are various myths about who Dr. Pogo is. One myth says that the founders of the shop loved to push each other around to music. Another myth stems from the fact that a long time ago, there was supposedly a dog with this name in the vicinity of the store. The claim that it is a job requirement or that we share a doctorate is untrue. We also cannot confirm the theory that a person with this name lives in our store.

Ganz o.k.?

Out of a desire and enjoyment of understatement, but also because we dislike the ubiquitous push advertising and still want to highlight special features, you will find the label “ganz .o.k.” on some products.

You can find more information about the “ganz o.k. Label” products and their manufacturers below:

Where does our fair trade coffee and tea come from?

• Cafe Libertad

  • The Café Libertad collective in Hamburg has been part of the distribution network for Zapatista coffee for the rebel communities in Chiapas for many years. In addition, it also supports indigenous self-organisation and the work of political cooperatives, political movements and queer-feminist projects in other countries (Costa Rica, Honduras, Colombia). In the spirit of solidarity trade, Café Libertad pays more than the world market price for green coffee and has supported projects in Zapatista communities with more than 200,000 euros over the last 15 years.

    Organic coffee from Zapatista and resistance cooperatives is not simply ‘just’ certified organic coffee. Such coffee is available almost everywhere. Here, only cooperatively organised smallholder families who grow their coffee organically and pesticide-free in the traditional way under shade trees are supported. The coffee cherries are separated from the pulp by hand and dried in the sun, instead of being industrially de-pulped and dried immediately after harvesting, as is the case with plantation coffee.

    The production of the Libertad, Durito and Rebeldia varieties directly supports the rebellious communities in Chiapas, which are fighting in many ways for global autonomy and self-determination. The proceeds from Störtebeker and Kiptik not only promote autonomy in Chiapas, but also political projects and movements in other countries: anarchist centres and anti-racist projects, demonstrations, protests and counterculture. Coffee & Espresso Las Chonas comes from the women's cooperative Aprolma, which is part of the opposition movement in Honduras and wants to overturn patriarchal structures in the global coffee trade. The solidarity espresso St. Pauli Roar serves to promote anti-racist projects, political neighbourhood work and right to the city movements worldwide. Sonador coffee supports refugees from El Salvador living in Costa Rica. No matter which variety you try, with every bean you buy, you are showing solidarity with valuable projects.

    More information: www.cafe-libertad.de

• Aroma Zapatista

  • The coffee collective Aroma Zapatista is a self-managed enterprise in Hamburg. The central focus of their work is fair trade with Zapatista coffee and direct support for the Zapatista self-managed structures in Chiapas, Mexico.

    We are the Berlin depot!

    Depot means that we offer the same price that Aroma Zapatista charges for its coffees and that we have their entire range in stock. When you pick up your coffee from us, it saves the Hamburgers work and shipping costs, DHL drivers have less stress, and the environmental footprint of the good beans is probably a little better too.
    Depot means that we offer the same price that Aroma Zapatista charges for its coffees and that we have their entire range in stock. When you buy coffee from us, you save the Hamburgers work and shipping costs, DHL drivers have less stress, and the environmental footprint of the good beans is probably a little better too.

    How we work (quoted from aroma-zapatista.de):

    The green coffee is purchased directly from the Zapatista cooperatives and the CENCOIC cooperative. We pay a price that is above the fair trade level. For us, solidarity trade means more than just buying green coffee at a fairer price and supporting the cooperative organisation of coffee farmers. For us, it also means directly and actively supporting political and social movements such as the Zapatistas and the indigenous movement CRIC. They are changing existing structures and building alternatives.

    Part of the proceeds from the sale of roasted coffee goes to Chiapas as support funds to help build self-managed education, health, agriculture, communication and administrative structures. In a similar way, we support the indigenous movement in Cauca with its self-organised CRIC (Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca).

    Armed with extensive experience in fair trade coffee and collective work, we have taken on the challenge of running a self-managed trading business that is not focused on personal profit.

    Our collective business is an attempt to participate as little as possible in existing market mechanisms. We do not strive for the highest possible profits. We want to offer our coffee at a price that is affordable for most people. For this reason, we do not work with the wholesale discount system, for example, which significantly increases the price for end consumers. Our calculations are based on covering our costs. The profits generated are reinvested, put into legal reserves and, of course, we collect money from the sale of roasted coffee to financially support the Zapatista communities.

    We purchase our coffee from indigenous communities in resistance in the southern state of Chiapas, Mexico, who belong to the Zapatista movement. On 1 January 1994, the Zapatistas rose up against exploitation, violence, oppression, patriarchy and racism. They drove out the large landowners for whom they had to work under degrading conditions and reclaimed the land that they and their ancestors had farmed for centuries. Since then, they have been building self-governing structures on these lands. We support their demands for land, freedom, dignity and justice and want to strengthen the self-governing structures by purchasing their coffee.

    In Cauca, there has been collective resistance by indigenous groups demanding land and self-determination since at least the beginning of the 20th century. For the coffee growers of the indigenous movement CRIC in Cauca (south-western Colombia), the cultivation and sale of coffee is also a basis for ensuring the economic survival of many families, in addition to self-sufficiency. The CRIC is significantly involved in large-scale mobilisations against the exploitation of their territory. They are fighting for more land and for their autonomy, and against a neoliberal economic model.

• Flying Roasters

  • Flying Roasters is a small collective enterprise in Berlin consisting of three people. It operates under a binding internal agreement or statute (publicly available) that limits wages (equal for all; any profits above this amount are reinvested and donated). Decisions are made jointly and responsibility is shared. The collective operates according to the following principles:

    Direct. The green coffee is sourced directly from the producing cooperatives without any intermediaries. This ensures that the price paid goes entirely to the producers. The guaranteed minimum price ($2.75 per pound of green coffee) is above the Fairtrade price (currently $1.40 per pound).

    Ecological. Cultivation is carried out in an ecologically sound manner. This means avoiding chemical and synthetic additives and genetic engineering, but also cultivating mixed crops. The green coffee is harvested by hand.

    High quality. Only the highest quality Arabica and Robusta beans are used. Unlike industrial roasting methods, the roasting process at Flying Roasters takes longer and is carried out at lower temperatures. This allows the typical aromas of each variety to develop.

    Transparent. The aim is to ensure traceability so that end consumers can find out about the origin of the coffee, transport routes and roasting processes. The collective reports on conditions in the growing region and also discloses its own working methods. A transparency report is published once a year, which you can view here.

    More info: www.flyingroasters.de

    Flying Roasters supplies us with our coffee for serving in reusable containers, as well as eight varieties of roasted coffee beans for bulk purchase.

• Meta Mate

  • Our Meta Mate product is a fresh, hand-harvested mate. It comes from wild, carefully selected jungle trees – and is the only mate available in Germany that is grown in the wild. The mates are produced from start to finish by autonomous Brazilian farmers, smoked with yerba mate wood and dried traditionally.

    More info: www.metamateberlin.de

• Biolandhof Klein

  • The family business has been growing white sweet lupins since 1994. Since opening our vegan shop, we have been selling roasted lupins from the Klein organic farm: lupin coffee!

    The product comes directly from the grower, a small family farm. The roasting is done by a private roastery in Aschaffenburg.

Where do our drinks come from?

• Kommune Karmitz

  • Karmitz is a commune that has been living in an old farmstead in the Wendland region for several years now, with a changing mix of residents (adults, children, non-human animals, etc.). According to its own understanding, Karmitz has high political ideals: ‘Non-hierarchical structure, mutual respect and acceptance, non-violence in word and deed, consensus principle, active solidarity with the undogmatic left, energetic social criticism, anarchy, and more... Sometimes we achieve our ideals, but most of the time they run ahead of us.’

    The municipality operates a cider mill, from which we source popular juices made from regional apples, pears, quinces and root vegetables. They also have a plant-based sewage treatment system, wood gas central heating and a kitchen stove. Sustainability and self-sufficiency are key principles here.

    Deliveries are more or less sporadic, and due to the long distance, we always have to buy in bulk. As a result, individual varieties are often unavailable for long periods of time.

• Premium

  • Since 2001, Premium has been working ‘as a collective that includes not only employees, but also suppliers and customers. There are no traditional hierarchies. The members of the collective organise themselves via an online board, where company decisions are discussed and consensus is sought.’ (Source: goodimpact.org).

    The collective works with maximum outsourcing, but also with maximum insourcing. ‘This means that production, logistics and trade are handled by independent professionals as regular contractors (who, however, have equal decision-making rights). You could say that everyone works together, no one is external, and everything has an impact somewhere.’

    We currently source Premium Cola and Premium Beer from the collective. Self-description: „Premium Cola was founded by disappointed consumers of another cola brand, whose recipe they initially adopted as quasi-tolerated pirates and later took over completely with a flavourless change. In addition to its high caffeine content of 250 mg/litre, the recipe is characterised by a special taste that is stronger and fuller than other cola drinks.“

    But one product alone was not enough to guarantee secure jobs and training places without compromising the special, non-commercial approach. Another product was needed, and in 2008 the decision was made to launch a beer. It is a pilsner with an alcohol content of 5%, brewed by the Weissenohe monastery brewery.

    Find out more about the premium products, the history of the collective and its unusual structure at www.premium-cola.de and in the article linked above on goodimpact.org.

• Kolle Mate

  • Kollemate (mate-flavoured lemonade)
    Kilimo (cherry lemonade)
    Zotrine (lemon lemonade)

    Produced by a collective from Dresden that considers ‘solidarity, fairness and equality to be extremely important’ and has resolved to ‘act as correctly as possible in social, ecological and socio-political terms’. This includes transparency – e.g. with regard to the origin of ingredients, refraining from ‘traditional’ advertising or commercial sponsorship, independence from interest-bearing loans and credits, use of ingredients from certified organic cultivation, etc.

    The collective uses the infrastructure of Premium-Cola (the so-called Premium OS: www.premium-cola.de/betriebssystem). Political projects and campaigns are funded with a specific, fixed share of the costs. No resources of animal origin are used.

    More info: kolle-mate.de

• Soli Drinks

  • SOLIDRINKS has found a way to raise money for socially relevant projects and use the bottles to spread a message against discrimination and racism. SOLIDRINKS is a social enterprise (Solidarity Drinks GmbH), a non-profit association (Solidrinks e.V.) and a socio-political campaign (SOLISHOUT) all at once. SOLIDRINKS produces delicious SOLIMATE.

    At Solidarity Drinks, refugees, migrants and locals work in tandem and learn from and with each other. Solidrinks e.V. is an association (currently being established) that is responsible for allocating funds from sales revenue. It decides independently of the entrepreneurs which projects by and with refugees will be supported. You can read about the projects here. In addition, the bottle labels with changing illustrations draw attention to the problem of flight in a globalised world.

    More iInfo: solidrinks.de

• Vegan wines

  • We stock products from two vegan wineries.

    La Petroleuse
    2019 vintage red wine and rosé from Spain, distributed by the anarchist cooperative ACTYVA.

Where does our delicious tofu come from?

• Soy Rebels Tofu

  • Teto Tofu uses only organic soybeans from Germany for its soy specialities. This guarantees high-quality soybeans that are free from genetic engineering. Furthermore, no rainforest is cleared and the beans are transported over very short distances. This means that the soybeans have a positive environmental balance, as they are legumes that bind nitrogen in the soil in the field and also fertilise themselves. Teto Tofu manufactures all its products by hand.

• Tofurei Wendland

  • Since 2013, the collective from Wendland, currently consisting of four members, has been producing tofu in a former cheese dairy. Here, tofu is produced by hand in limited batches every two weeks and partly smoked. Thanks to vacuum packaging, even the unsmoked tofu keeps for a long time.

    According to their own description: „We have found that we can achieve more through solidarity and equality than in hierarchical structures. (...) Food is too important to us to leave it to global markets that see it as just another product for maximising profits. We want to know what we eat and where our food comes from. We don‘t want food production to rob other people of their food or prospects. In our opinion, this works best when cultivation and production take place in manageable cycles. In this way, we also minimise transport routes and thus greenhouse gas emissions.“

    More info: tofurei-wendland.de

What special cosmetics can you find in our shop?

• Vio.Me

  • A factory run by its workers

    Vio.Me Soli soap: After the workers at the Vio.Me factory in Greece were cheated out of their wages, the employers took off and tried to dissolve the factory as part of insolvency proceedings. A few years ago, the workers occupied the factory and set up a self-management system. They are currently fighting a legal battle for their rights and trying to work independently. Vio.Me has become a flagship project in Greece, serving as a model for other companies fighting against layoffs and closures or occupying their premises. The Vio.Me workforce supports these companies as well as various social projects such as the social clinic in Thessaloniki and the fight against gold mining in Chalkidiki.

    The factory produces environmentally friendly soaps and cleaning products without chemical additives. The products are sold in Greece without intermediaries at markets, festivals, sympathetic institutions and social centres. A broad international solidarity movement also supports the project through donations and purchases of the products.

    More information: More about vio.me

    We also recommend watching a short documentary video about the background and history of Vio.Me: www.youtube.com/watch?v=pK_Zsa2EAqA

• Maisoap

  • Maisoap soap factory: Maisoap is a small family-run soap factory in the heart of Friedrichshain that produces nourishing handmade soaps. The soaps are made using a gentle cold-stirring process and are the result of scientific research and a desire for natural cosmetics. Only high-quality vegetable fats and oils, pure essential oils and selected perfume oils are used in production. The soap recipes and fragrance blends are the manufacturer‘s own creations. The soaps are naturally microbiologically and dermatologically tested and certified.
    Due to their composition, they are ideal for whole-body care.

    More info: www.maisoap.de

• Sauberkunst

  • A vegan soap manufacturer based in Werder, Brandenburg.

    We offer a range of solid shampoo bars.
    This is hair care without silicones, synthetic preservatives and petroleum products, and they are also palm oil-free. This allows hair to be washed in a healthy and environmentally friendly way – not only are the ingredients excellent, but the soaps also come without plastic packaging and are very economical.

What unusual spreads do we have?

• Projekt:deli

  • The project promotes work and employment in the field of vegan, healthy nutrition for young adults in special circumstances. It offers 100% organic spreads (available from us: liver sausage and, depending on the season, sweet pepper, sweet potato or something else). All proceeds go towards the project. Delicious and socially responsible.

• Verdulade

  • We have been selling Robert‘s delicatessen jars since the very beginning of their production. The name actually reveals what they are all about. They have a jam-like consistency, but contain vegetables as ingredients. If you‘re tired of sunflower seed-based spreads or yeast extract and would like to spread less fat on your bread, you should give these a try. The finely seasoned varieties (e.g. courgette and lemongrass or mushroom and rosemary) are handmade in Berlin.

What other special products can you find here?

• BeCollective – Oil for the gears

  • This high-quality olive oil is produced by an anarchist collective in Crete that formed in the wake of the crisis. A fixed percentage of the sales proceeds is distributed to support emancipatory projects, alternative media and prisoners. The aim is for other agricultural projects that respect the environment and reject traditional employer-employee relationships to develop under the umbrella of the BeCollective network.

    With an acidity of 0.3 to 0.5, Becollective olive oil is of the highest quality (like almost all oils from Crete) and therefore deserves the designation ‘extra virgin’. When stored properly (in a dark, cool place), the oil can be kept for up to 15 months. A tip: for salads, always shake the contents of the tin vigorously so that the sediment is evenly distributed, but the opposite applies for frying, as the suspended particles burn more quickly when heated.

    More info: A video of the manufacturing process: becollective.espivblogs.net

• Biohof Lex

  • Biohof Lex is a family-run farm near Munich that has been operating organically since 1979 and is one of the founding members of the Naturland Association. The farm has been family-owned since the early 17th century. Approximately 100 hectares are cultivated collectively and processed in the farm‘s own mill. Thanks to gentle processing at low temperatures, the germination capacity of the grains is preserved.

    Crops grown include buckwheat, spelt, soybeans, borlotti beans and many more.

    More iInfo: www.biohof-lex.de

• IRIS Pasta

  • The Iris agricultural cooperative is an association of producers in southern Lombardy, covering everything from cultivation to pasta production. The cooperative is committed to promoting best practices in soil fertility and biodiversity, as well as researching ancient seeds. It also focuses on creating jobs, especially for women and disadvantaged people, developing a direct relationship with consumers and spreading the idea of collective ownership.

    We source Iris products through the Schnittstelle collective, which distributes products from cooperatives, collectives and alternative projects.

    More information on the cooperative‘s eventful history: www.irisbio.com/en/la-storia

• OBEG Producers‘ Cooperative

  • he Hohenlohe Organic Producers‘ Cooperative has been operating for 25 years. It was founded by Bioland farmers with the aim of storing, processing and marketing their own grain. OBEG now has storage capacity for up to 5,500 tonnes of grain from 100 Bioland farmers.

    We now obtain amaranth, linseed, pumpkin seeds and sunflower seeds from OBEG. These are all ingredients that are often imported from far away (between Hungary and China) – ours have not travelled around the world.

    More information: www.obeg.de

• Kallari Futuro

  • Kallari Futuro impresses with its direct, fair and sustainable trade on equal terms.

    Kallari Futuro was founded by Raquel Cayapa Tapuyy, who is also the managing director. She comes from a Kichwa and Shuar family and grew up in the Ecuadorian Amazon region. Kallari Futuro cooperates with smallholder cooperatives that grow their raw materials using sustainable permaculture, thus enabling them to access the European market.

    Pride and tradition – local value chain

    Producers benefit from prices significantly above the world market rate, direct access to European markets and an existing marketing strategy. Nature benefits from sustainable and ecological cultivation in harmony with the natural ecosystem, which preserves and promotes biodiversity. Consumers are brought as close as possible to the origin guayusa tea and can make a direct contribution to fair trade and the preservation of nature and traditional culture in the region of origin.

    The aim is to promote the initiative and financial independence of small farmers. The value chain should remain in the country of production, rather than simply importing raw materials as is usually the case. Being able to offer a saleable result of joint work for export is a real value for producers to be proud of. Much more so than simply selling the raw product.