Alpine Association honors first vegan refuge
lifestyle
The Franz Fischer Hut, located at 2,020 meters near Zederhaus (Lungau), is the first complete vegetarian and vegan refuge of the Austrian Alpine Association. The hut was honored with the association’s environmental seal of approval on Saturday.
The Franz Fischer Hut has been cooking and eating completely meatless since 2020. Hut leaseholder Evelyn Faber is the first and so far only one of the 231 huts of the Austrian Alpine Association to completely dispense with meat dishes. Evelyn Faber “deliberately cooks and bakes tasty, nutritious and meat-free alternatives,” said the Alpine Club’s environmental seal of approval. Faber would also like to have the hut certified with the V-Label, a seal of quality from the Vegan Society Austria. An organic certification by Bio Austria is also currently in progress, says Georg Unterberger, at the Alpine Association for those responsible for the huts.
Ecolabel criteria exceeded
In many areas of management, the Franz-Fischer-Hütte far exceeds the criteria of the Alpine Association’s environmental seal of approval, emphasized the Alpine Association on the sidelines of the annual general meeting on Saturday in Villach: When purchasing all the groceries that Evelyn Faber uses for the preparation of meals in the kitchen Franz-Fischer-Hütte used, pay attention to quality, freshness and local sourcing. Many products come from the Lungau.
“Knowing how much effort and passion it goes into presenting, maintaining and operating a hut in this way, the very creative tenant couple deserves our full respect,” emphasized the environmental quality seal commission of the Alpine Association.
New building from 2013
The Franz Fischer hut is located in the Riedingtal near Zederhaus in the Radstädter Tauern. Today’s hut was rebuilt in 2013 by the Lungau section of the Alpine Club – in place of an older hut from the 1960s. In this new building, the reuse of as many parts as possible was also welcomed, emphasizes Unterberger – that is why the production costs of 700,000 euros were also very low: “Untreated wooden parts from the old hut are still used in the wood stove of the Franz Fischer hut.” generated in its own small power station near the Zaunersee lake below the hut. In 2020, a biological plant for the waste water from the works was also built.
The environmental seal of approval has been awarded by the Austrian and German Alpine Associations and the Alpine Association of South Tyrol since 1996. It honors all those Alpine Club huts that excel in the area of the environment and ecological management. The criteria are extremely strong, emphasizes Georg Unterberger from the Alpine Club. In addition to the Franz Fischer Hut, the Hubertushaus at the Hohe Wand in the Gutenstein Alps in Lower Austria was also honored. This means that a total of 134 Alpine refuges have this seal of approval – 63 of them in Austria.