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  • A Life Devoted to Sea Buckthorn

    Our Story

How a berry became a business.

Orange-red as far as the eye could see, set against Brandenburg’s blue sky. The sight of the sea buckthorn fields at harvest time left a lasting impression on Christine Berger.

The glowing berry never let her go. In the early 1990s, the Berger couple leased a sea buckthorn plantation in Brandenburg, and shortly after, the grounds of what is now the Sea Buckthorn Garden in Petzow.

The Beginning: One Plantation, One Idea

After German reunification, the Berger couple leased a sea buckthorn plantation near Werder (Havel). Soon after came the grounds of today’s Sea Buckthorn Garden in Petzow. The sea buckthorn was already growing there. What was missing was someone to process it.

Christine Berger had a vision of what the berry could become, and put together a team of food experts to turn that vision into products. It started with Sandokan, the sea buckthorn juice. Sea buckthorn is a difficult berry: intense, delicate, headstrong. Even during the development of the first product, it became clear that compromises simply don’t work here.

Growth: One Juice Becomes Over 70 Products

What began as a juice grew over the years into a range with few comparisons. Fruit spreads with chili and guava, sea buckthorn wine, liqueurs, cosmetics, teas, gummy bears – all made to our own recipes, all from our own cultivation. The fields grew alongside it, from that first leased plantation to today’s more than 100 hectares of organic-certified growing land.

The quality did not go unnoticed. In 1996, the Sandokan sea buckthorn liqueur won the CMA Specialty Award, followed in 2000 by the CMA Specialty Award for the organic sea buckthorn jelly, presented in person by Federal Minister of Agriculture Karl-Heinz Funk. In 2007, the state of Brandenburg honored Christine Berger as Entrepreneur of the Year.

A Change of Generations: Dorothee Berger Takes Over

Until 2008, Christine Berger ran the company on her own. Then her daughter Dorothee joined the management team. One of her first major tasks: introducing the organic line into the natural food trade. Since 2010, the Sandokan products have been successfully established in organic retail. Since mid-2019, Dorothee Berger has led the company as sole managing director.

Christine Berger - Regionalpreis
Christine Berger - Regionalpreis
Dorothee Berger, Geschäftsführerin
Dorothee Berger, Geschäftsführerin

Today: Award-Winning, Grown, Rooted

The awards kept coming. In 2015, the Sea Buckthorn Ginger and Sea Buckthorn Mango-Chili fruit spreads received the DLG gold medal. In 2025, the crispy wafers were honored twice over, by Pro Agro and by Edeka. Many of our products carry the Pro Agro quality seal as a Brandenburg quality product.

What hasn’t changed: the business is still based in Petzow, the sea buckthorn still grows in our own fields, and every product is still made to our own recipes. What started as a single plantation has become a company of around 20 employees, and to this day, sea buckthorn still means everything to us.