Our activities

Agriculture

At Notre-Dame d’Oelenberg Abbey, everything begins in the fields.
The Abbey has 150 hectares of which 85 hectares are cultivated. We grow wheat, rape, corn, potatoes and lentils.
We harvest around 300 tonnes of wheat each year, all of which is used to make our flour.
The maize is bought in full by an Alsatian agricultural products trader.
The rapeseed, until now bought by a trader, will be used to produce our own rapeseed oil.
Each year we harvest about 70 tons of potatoes of various varieties, which we sell mainly to the shop in 10 kg nets.
Lentils have been a new crop since 2022. The entire production is sold to the monastery shop.

All our crops are grown using sustainable agriculture. This means that we try to treat as little as possible and we find alternative solutions to phytosanitary products to protect our crops. For example, we use Trichogramma to combat the corn borer. Trichogramma are tiny insects. With the help of a drone, we release small paper mache capsules containing these trichogramma. They lay their eggs directly in the moth eggs and the larvae can feed on the eggs of the pest. Our crops are thus protected and the planet is preserved.

The mill

The first traces of flour at Oelenberg Abbey date back to the 12th century.

Today the flour of the Oelenberg mill is renowned throughout France. Each year we produce about 1,100 tons of flour which we sell in our monastic shop and on our online shop. It is also distributed to local craftsmen (bakers, pastry cooks, butchers, restaurant owners, caterers), in certain Alsatian supermarkets and in the national network of monastic shops

We produce various categories of flour: T55 baker’s flour, T45 pastry flour, wholemeal, rye, 6 grain 3 seed, Miche special, Tradition, bran and semolina.

To produce all our flour we use 100% Alsatian wheat, either grown in our own fields or in the neighbouring fields of the abbey.

Our flours have the accreditation “Savour Alsace Produit du terroir”

Find our flours

The craft

At the Oelenberg Abbey handicraft shop we make a lot of good things!

Delectamenti are noodles produced by hand. Every day we break about 1,000 eggs by hand to separate the yolk from the white. The yolks are used in the preparation of the noodle dough with Oelenberg flour. After kneading, the dough is pressed through a bronze die to perfect the surface of the noodles. The noodles then dry very slowly before being packed by hand.
Large, medium, vermicelli, twisted or alphabet noodles, there is something for everyone.

Find our delectamenti

In our workshops we also make all kinds of cakes and meringues.
Meringues are made with the egg whites left over from the noodles. We add Alsatian sugar to these whites and we obtain hand-poached meringues that are crispy on the outside and melt in the mouth on the inside. We produce 8 varieties of meringues: round or long plain meringues, chocolate, cocoa, raspberry, vanilla, almond and lemon meringues.

Find our meringues

Coconut macaroons, almond tuiles, shortbread or galettes, no less than 9 varieties of small cakes are produced in our workshops. We also produce Linz pies, 4 types of cake and brioche!
We also produce Alsatian specialities for the festive season: manalas (little brioche men) at St Nicholas’ time and lamalas (sponge cake in the shape of a lamb) for Easter.

Find our biscuits

Find all our products on the online shop

The vegetable garden

A speciality of Brother Robert’s for over 50 years, the vegetables grown in the abbey’s kitchen garden are used mainly for the community’s meals. A small part of the harvest is sold in the abbey shop. Each year, 800 tomato plants are grown, to which are added salads, beans, peppers, pumpkins, etc.

The orchard

The abbey orchard is large and consists of about 100 trees, mainly apples. We make juice from these apples for the community and for sale in the shop. We also harvest some pears, mirabelle plums, peaches and plums. Fruit for the community and for sale. Since 2019, we have decided not to treat the orchard anymore in order to switch to a 100% organic orchard.

The apiary

In 2022 we decided to take over the apiary at the abbey. We are starting with a small apiary of 6 hives in order to produce all-flower honey for the monks’ consumption at first.