The people behind HortaBerry

Loránd Kokavecz

I'm 20 years old and currently studying sustainable agriculture at a university in Finland, while also deepening my knowledge of organic and regenerative farming practices.

I grew up in a family where, from a very young age, I was taught to care about where our food comes from, how it's made, and what happens to it before it reaches our table.

Today, this has become one of my personal goals as well. I want people to reconnect with the food they eat. To know where it comes from, know what's in it, know the environment in which it grows, and the people behind it.

Perhaps that's why HortaBerry feels so personal to me. I know where the plants and berries that go into each pouch grow. I know the person who gathers them, and I get to see the entire journey, from the Finnish wilderness to the finished HortaBerry pouches.

I get to make sure that everything we've created in Finland ultimately finds its way to you.

Jouko Kivimetsä

Jouko is the heart and soul of HortaBerry in Finland, and the person who quite literally sees the landscape where HortaBerry begins every single day.

He's 72, although you'd probably never guess it when you first meet him. For decades, he's followed the principles of the traditional Cretan diet. He also ran several restaurants, bringing this simple, nature-centered approach to food into everything he served.

But his true passion is horta. The Greek word horta refers to wild edible greens gathered for food. And for decades, Jouko has dedicated himself to the very wild plants you'll find in HortaBerry. He teaches people how to identify, gather, and use these plants, while sharing why they have been such a natural and essential part of the human diet for centuries.

Without his knowledge, deep connection to the local landscape, and decades of hands-on experience with wild plants, HortaBerry simply wouldn't exist.

Katalin Kokavecz

For more than a decade, Kata has dedicated her work to functional health and lifestyle education. At the heart of everything she does is a simple question: how can we support the body's natural functions through the way we live, the environment around us, and the food we eat every day?

She is the founder of MED Központ, which she created to bring together knowledge about functional health, lifestyle, and their interconnected relationships in one place, through a holistic, systems-based approach.

Within HortaBerry, Kata brings a perspective that sees food as much more than a collection of nutrients. To her, where food comes from, the natural environment in which it grows, how it's produced, and how closely it remains to its original form in nature are just as important.

The idea behind HortaBerry grew from this philosophy.