very day in Germany, tons of food end up in the garbage. Food which is actually still edible, but due to aesthetic defects is not recycled or sold. Often, there are only a few tiny spots, dents or pressure points, which disqualify the fruits and vegetables from being traded.
Dörrwerk, a small Berlin manufactory, has made it its task to change that. Since 2015, the founders Zubin Farahani, actually a doctor by profession, and the two operators, Jonas Bieber and Philipp Prechtner, are buying fruits and vegetables directly from farmers and wholesalers and process them into chips and delicious crispy fruit paper.
It all started in Zubins’ small kitchen. After weeks of experimentation, he had found the perfect recipe and began to sell the snack at the weekly market. The so-called fruit paper went over so well that he took a break from medicine to devote himself completely to his new project together with his friends.
With the help of a crowdfunding action on the startnext.com platform, they were able to buy their first big drying oven and get bigger rooms. „The biggest challenge was certainly to transfer the small production steps from our own kitchen to large machines,“ says the team today.
They regularly go to the wholesale market or directly to the farmers and offer retailers fair prices for apples, bananas, mangoes or pineapples that are not declared more than class 1 due to their optical defects.
The fruits are then first washed, peeled and processed into a fine puree. The puree is then dried for several hours at low temperature in the drying oven. The basis for all varieties is apple sauce, which is then mixed with other fruits. The result: smooth, crispy fruit paper. Without sugar, additives or preservatives.
The three aim to become Germany‘s most sustainable manufacturer for healthy snacks and to save thousands of tons of fruits per year. If seems their goal is in reach.
www.doerrwerk.de
