About Reformhaus

Reformhaus

The Reformhaus Magazin is the free customer magazine of Germany's Reformhaus health-food retail movement, available at no cost in the country's Reformhaus specialist stores. Published by the Hamburg-based ReformhausMarketing GmbH, the magazine accompanies each new edition with practical guidance on healthy living: tips and information on health, nutrition and natural cosmetics, seasonal recipes and advice from the movement's network of nutrition and health experts. Its distribution model is inseparable from the retail brand behind it: the magazine is picked up by shoppers in the stores themselves, where it reinforces the Reformhaus promise of competent advice on health and nutrition. Until mid-2025, past issues were also offered as PDF downloads on reformhaus.de; since July 2025 the magazine has been distributed exclusively in printed form. As the editorial voice of a retail brand whose history stretches back more than a century, the Reformhaus Magazin sits at the intersection of customer publishing, health journalism and the German tradition of the Lebensreform movement.

Overview

The Reformhaus Magazin is the official customer magazine of Reformhaus, the German network of specialist health-food retailers organised under the neuform cooperative. According to its own presentation on reformhaus.de, the magazine inspires readers with every new issue, offering tips and information on health, nutrition, natural cosmetics and related topics. It is available free of charge in many Reformhaus stores, where customers can simply take a copy and read it at their leisure. This model makes the magazine one of the most widely distributed health publications in the German retail landscape: it reaches shoppers at the point of sale, in a setting where advice on nutrition and natural remedies is part of the service.

The content of the magazine reflects the product world of the Reformhaus stores. The assortment of a typical Reformhaus spans several thousand products, with the emphasis on vegetarian and vegan nutrition, food supplements, natural remedies and natural cosmetics. The magazine's editorial line follows the same priorities. Readers find seasonal recipes — many of them vegan, lactose-free or gluten-free — alongside articles on current health topics, portraits of natural product ranges and practical guidance for everyday wellbeing. The tone is advisory and encouraging rather than clinical: the magazine positions itself as a companion for a healthy lifestyle, consistent with the Reformhaus motto of helping people live healthier for longer.

The digital presentation of the magazine is integrated into the reformhaus.de portal. A dedicated magazine page presents the current issue with its cover, and an archive of past issues was long available as PDF downloads for reading and sharing. The publisher announced that all issues up to and including June 2025 remain available as PDFs, while from July 2025 the Reformhaus Magazin is offered exclusively in printed form. The site also makes the cover image of each issue available for download. Beyond the magazine, the portal carries the brand's broader editorial content: vegetarian and vegan recipes, expert tips, current product recommendations and the Reformhaus podcast, which extends the magazine's health themes into audio.

The magazine's readership is the health-conscious consumer who shops in Reformhäuser: people interested in natural nutrition, plant-based eating, natural cosmetics and preventive health. Because the magazine is free and distributed in stores, it reaches both regular customers and casual visitors, serving as an introduction to the Reformhaus product world for newcomers and as a source of inspiration for loyal readers. Its advertising pages, presented in the publisher's media data, address manufacturers of natural foods, supplements and natural cosmetics seeking access to this specialised audience.

History

The history of the Reformhaus Magazin is inseparable from the history of the Reformhaus movement itself, one of the oldest health-retail traditions in Germany. The Reformhaus brand looks back on a history of well over a century — a 2015 press release marking its recognition as a "Marke des Jahrhunderts" (Brand of the Century) spoke of a 128-year history. The movement grew out of the Lebensreform currents of the late nineteenth century, which advocated a life in harmony with nature at a time when industrialisation was transforming everyday life. The first Reformhäuser offered natural foods and remedies as an alternative to the emerging industrial food system, and the idea proved durable: the brand's own account notes that it was "organic before organic existed".

A free magazine tradition in the Reformhäuser is itself very old. The "Reform Rundschau", a magazine distributed free of charge in Reformhaus stores, has appeared since 1925, giving the movement nearly a century of experience with customer publishing. This long tradition of editorial communication with customers — combining product information, health education and lifestyle inspiration — forms the historical backdrop against which the current Reformhaus Magazin must be understood. The movement's communication has always rested on the idea that competent advice is part of the retail service, a principle that the magazine continues in printed form.

The organisational structure behind the magazine took shape with the development of the cooperative system. The Reformhaus brand is owned by the Reformhaus eG, and the retailers are organised in the neuform cooperative — the "neuform – Vereinigung deutscher Reformhäuser e.G." — which also administers the neuform quality seal found on many products. Marketing and publishing activities for the network are handled by the ReformhausMarketing GmbH, based in Hamburg. The company's media data for the Reformhaus Kundenmagazin, published under the domain reformhaus-magazin.de, documents the professional publishing operation behind the title: dedicated contacts for advertising, editorial and distribution, technical print specifications and general terms and conditions for advertisements and inserts in the customer magazine, its advice publications and calendars.

The magazine's recent history reflects the broader shift in customer publishing from print-plus-digital to a more focused print strategy. For years, the publisher maintained a PDF archive of past issues on reformhaus.de, making the magazine's content available to readers beyond the stores. The decision, communicated on the magazine's web page, to offer the title exclusively in printed form from July 2025 onwards — while keeping issues up to June 2025 as PDF downloads — marks a deliberate concentration on the in-store distribution channel, where the magazine reaches readers at the moment of purchase.

Content and Sections

The Reformhaus Magazin covers the thematic world of the Reformhaus stores: health, nutrition, natural cosmetics and natural remedies. Each issue offers a mix of advisory articles, product information and lifestyle content, organised around seasonal themes and current health topics. The editorial approach is practical: readers are given concrete suggestions they can apply in everyday life, from dietary tips to guidance on natural skincare. The magazine's own description promises inspiration with every new issue, and the content is designed to be browsed at leisure — a "schmökern" magazine in the German sense, inviting relaxed reading rather than demanding study.

Recipes form a central and highly visible part of the magazine's content. The reformhaus.de portal, which extends the magazine's editorial offering, presents a large collection of vegetarian and vegan recipes, many of them developed to the same standards as the magazine's printed recipes: clearly marked as lactose-free, gluten-free or vegan, with preparation times and nutritional notes. Seasonal cooking is a recurring theme — autumn issues feature dishes with pumpkin and root vegetables, for example — and the recipes emphasise ingredients available in the Reformhaus assortment, from wholefood staples to natural food supplements. This integration of editorial content and product world is characteristic of customer publishing: the recipes inspire, and the stores supply the ingredients.

Health advice is the second pillar. The magazine draws on the Reformhaus network's long-standing cooperation with nutrition scientists, ecologists and physicians, who serve as expert advisers to the movement. Articles address topics such as immune support, digestion, healthy ageing and specific dietary needs, always with the emphasis on natural approaches. The brand's podcast, hosted with experts such as Dr. Franziska Rubin, extends these themes into audio form, with episodes on topics like targeted nutrition for rheumatism and gout. The magazine and the podcast together form a multi-channel health advisory offering.

Natural cosmetics and body care receive dedicated attention, reflecting the importance of this category in the Reformhaus assortment — roughly a fifth of a typical store's range. The magazine presents new natural cosmetic lines, explains ingredients and offers application tips. Product recommendations and seasonal highlights, such as the monthly favourite products, round out the content, giving readers an overview of new arrivals and tried-and-tested classics in the stores.

Publisher and Organization

The Reformhaus Magazin is published by the ReformhausMarketing GmbH, the marketing company of the German Reformhaus retail network, based in Hamburg. The company's media data for the customer magazine lists dedicated contacts for advertising, editorial and distribution, with the editorial team reachable at its own address. According to the 2021 media data, the company's managing directors were Carsten Greve and Rainer Plum, who also serve on the board of the Reformhaus eG; more recent management details are not publicly confirmed in the sources consulted for this profile.

The publisher operates within the cooperative structure of the Reformhaus movement. The Reformhaus brand itself is a registered trademark of the Reformhaus eG, used exclusively by the affiliated specialist retailers of the network. The retailers are organised in the neuform cooperative, the "neuform – Vereinigung deutscher Reformhäuser e.G.", which administers the neuform quality seal — a guarantee of tested quality on many products sold in the stores. This cooperative organisation distinguishes the Reformhaus Magazin from conventional commercial magazines: it is the publishing arm of a retailer-owned brand, financed through the network's marketing budget and through advertising from manufacturers of natural products.

The scale of the network gives the magazine its reach. A 2015 press release put the number of Reformhäuser in Germany at more than 1,200, with around 85 additional outlets in Austria; more recent figures are not publicly confirmed. The stores are staffed by salespeople trained at the Reformhaus-Fachakademie in Oberursel, the movement's own academy for health and nutrition advice, and the magazine's editorial line is consistent with the academy's advisory philosophy. The publisher also produces related publications, including advice booklets and calendars, under the same organisational roof.

Digital Presence

The digital home of the Reformhaus Magazin is the magazine page on reformhaus.de, the central portal of the Reformhaus brand. The page presents the current issue with its cover, describes the magazine's offering and provides access to the archive: all issues up to and including June 2025 are available as PDF downloads, while the publisher notes that from July 2025 the magazine appears exclusively in printed form. The cover image of each issue can also be downloaded separately. The page is part of a larger editorial portal that includes vegetarian and vegan recipes, expert tips, current product recommendations and seasonal campaigns.

The reformhaus.de site as a whole functions as the digital extension of the retail brand. It combines an online shop for the Reformhaus product range — natural foods, supplements, natural remedies and natural cosmetics — with extensive editorial content: a recipe database with dietary filters, expert articles on health topics and the Reformhaus podcast. The podcast, distributed through standard podcast platforms, features conversations with health experts and extends the magazine's advisory mission into audio. This integration of magazine, web content, podcast and shop reflects the customer-publishing strategy of meeting readers across multiple channels.

The publisher maintains its own domain, reformhaus-magazin.de, which hosts the media data and advertising information for the customer magazine, including technical print specifications and contact details for the advertising, editorial and distribution departments. The brand is also present on social media and video platforms, where it publishes brand films presenting the Reformhaus philosophy of helping people live healthier for longer. Taken together, the print magazine in the stores and the digital portal online form a coherent media offering: the magazine inspires at the point of sale, and the website deepens the relationship with recipes, advice and the possibility to shop the featured products.