SirPlus: Can a Supermarket and an App Help Eradicate Food Waste?

Fighting food waste one delivery at a time: that is the ambition of the SirPlus team. The trio is planning to open a food outlet selling only saved food, and their market will have an online shop with same day delivery in Berlin.

Autor*in Terri Kafyeke, 06.01.17

Fighting food waste one delivery at a time: that is the ambition of the SirPlus team. The trio is planning to open a food outlet selling only saved food, and their market will have an online shop with same day delivery in Berlin.

The topic of food waste has been making headlines often in the past years, and for good reason. According to a study, 88 million tonnes of food are wasted every single year in the European Union. That’s a shocking 173 kilos per person, annually.

Why does so much perfectly edible food end up in the trash? The causes are numerous, and can be found all along the supply chain. They include overproduction, misinterpreted “best before” labels and esthetic standards for fruits and vegetables.

From Dumpster Diving to Food Sharing

German activist Raphael Fellmer is known for having lived without money from 2010 to 2015 and even managing to travel from the Netherlands to Mexico during that time.

His experience dumpster diving led him to found a food saving network known as foodsharing. The volunteers that make up this network legally collect food headed for the bin from partner supermarkets, and redistribute them. To date, the 25,938 foodsharing volunteers have helped save 8,960,026.5 kg of edible food that would have otherwise ended up in the trash.

One Step Further: A Store Selling Saved Food

Fellmer partnered with Alexander Piutti (entrepreneur) and Martin Schott (renewable energy engineer) to take the foodsharing concept to the next level. Together, they founded SirPlus. The goal is to create a food outlet that only sells saved food discarded by other markets. The products sold at SirPlus would be up to 70% cheaper than in conventional supermarkets.

In addition to the brick and mortar store, SirPlus will also be present online via an app. The team will develop a digital market place to distribute the saved food. It will facilitate the purchase of food by regular customers but also allow organisations such as refugee centers and soup kitchens to easily get access to cheap food.

One of the most interesting features of SirPlus is that they are planning to offer same-day delivery in Berlin. That means that for people living in the German capital, edible food at a discounted price will be just a click away.

The SirPlus team is currently raising funds to set up their outlet. If you wish to support this initiative, head to their crowdfunding page. Watch the video below (German with English subtitles) for more information on the project and the team:

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