Beginner's Workshop at the Neanderthal Museum, 18 May 2014

The birch bark box is classically round and very decorative. It is particularly suitable for serving slices of bread and biscuits in the centre of the table. It can hold a small round loaf of bread or some pastries. After eating, simply close the lid, place in the kitchen - and your bread and pastries are perfectly stored.

Your good bread stays fresh for a long time because the natural birch bark

• regulates the moisture balance by itself and
• mould formation is thus prevented.

The bark is removed in early summer harvested from living, predominantly old trees. The cambium is not damaged and the tree can continue to live. Nevertheless, it can happen that it is attacked by pests or fungi before new bark forms and then dies over the years. However, it then enriches the largely natural taiga as deadwood and makes room for higher-value species and young trees. This corresponds to the natural vegetation change. Like timber harvesting, bark utilisation is of course an intervention in the commercial forest. As individual trees in the mixed forest stand are utilised carefully, this is not ecologically problematic.

• The cans can be wiped with a damp clothbut also under the tap rinsed out if you let them dry well afterwards
• You can wash out the lunch boxes, also with vinegar water, and then place them in the oven at approx. 60°C for half an hour. This kills any mould spores and the tin can be used as before. To prevent mould growth, we recommend our Swiss stone pine grids. We enclose care instructions with every tin you buy.
• As a rule, the cans take on the flavour of the stored food, not the other way round. This can only have an effect on the flavour if low-odour food is stored for a very long time.
• No further care is necessaryrubbing with oil is expressly not recommended.

• The material used for the completely untreated, sustainable produced vessels consists of the outermost layer of the Birch barkthat we know white. In early summer, when the sap rises in the tree, the bark is easy to slit. The white layer is peeled off and the inside is golden yellow; this is used for further processing because it is more robust and durable than the outside.
• All vessels are handmade and unique.

They are:

• antiseptic (Mould formation can be prevented)
• Waterproof and robust (therefore washable)
• flavour-tightopaque
• Mothproof (Swiss stone pine wood)
• unbreakable, tight closure, trickle-proof
• light
• pH-neutral, soft and velvety like leather

All dry foods, e.g:

• Tea, coffee (the tins are flavour-proof), herbs, spices, muesli & flour (trickle-proof), nuts, lentils, dried mushrooms
• Bread, pastries, cakes

• We obtain these cans from Family businesses in Siberia (not far from the city of Tomsk), Tim Mergelsberg, the founder and managing director of sagaan, has lived in the region himself and is usually there once a year.
• We attach great importance to good social interaction and fair payment. For example, sagaan pre-financed the purchase of a family's house as a home and workshop.
• We pay attention to vegan, ecological and socially fair manufacturing processes. No chemicals are used in the entire production chain. Instead, we rely on plug-in and sewing techniques. Only individual products in the particularly flavour-tight Taiga series use some wood glue on the inside.