Hamburgs chamber of horror!

Frozen food manufacturer Frosta stopped using additives of any kind forits products many years ago. To document the fact in a renewed marketing effort, Dorten conceptualized a museum for food additives which opened in 2008 at the Hamburg Grossmarkt. With the museum, Frosta wants to educate consumers about  artificial food ingredients and their effects.


Patrick, how did the idea of the “Zusatzstoffmuseum” come about?
Dorten hosted a workshop together with students from the University of Applied Sciences of Pforzheim, where the idea was brilliantly thought out by a team of students. We then took it up and developed it to its full communication potential. 

What’s the most difficult part of designing a museum?
You can imagine it’s not a trivial thing. We worked closely together with Udo Pollmer and Prof. Dr. Schwedt, both experts in their field. Of course there was a lot of communicating and negotiating going on to find the right degree of information depth and entertainment value for the exhibits. The actual visual design of the museum was to resemble a common supermarket! We wanted this shopping style to show visitors that they decide what they consume with every buying decision they make.

Did the project influence your own shopping habits?
Can you imagine, there are food additives that are gained by scraping off lice! Some of the things I learned are stomach-churning. But to really check every product in a supermarket before buying it - no, that doesn’t work for me.