With fresh capital and a new investor, Afreshed is targeting growth across German-speaking markets.
Afreshed, an Austrian organic fruit-and-vegetable rescue-box company, has acquired the German competitor etepetete. Fresh fruit and vegetables account for 35 per cent. of all avoidable food waste in private households.
Fruit and vegetables that do not meet the required standard sometimes do not make it onto the shelves and are, in some cases, destroyed directly by the farmer. The afreshed delivery service operates nationwide in Austria and has reached break-even. Thousands of deliveries are made to customers in Germany and Austria every day.
The founders have continuously improved the model, heavily digitised their product and invested in their own logistics infrastructure, which forms the core of the business. afreshed maintains its own delivery fleet in Austria, comprising just under 20 vehicles. afreshed uses specially developed software to plan routes to minimise CO₂ emissions. This ensures that the ‘last mile’ – the journey from the distribution centre to the customer’s front door – is organised efficiently.
“The founding philosophy of both companies is essentially the same: saving food and passing it directly on to consumers, all via an optimised supply chain. In recent years, we have each demonstrated the potential of this vision independently. With the acquisition of etepetete, we are now taking the next logical step in our expansion and joining forces to further strengthen this shared mission,” shared Lukas Forsthuber, co-founder of afreshed.
He asserts that with etepetete, afreshed has acquired an established competitor that has customers in every German state, particularly in Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria, and Berlin.
With this transaction, afreshed marks the start of its expansion into the German market; to this end, the organic delivery service has closed a funding round in the mid-seven-figure range.
According to Bernhard Bocksrucker, co-founder of afreshed, etepetete will be continued as a brand:
“The acquisition not only gives us immediate market presence, but also local expertise and an existing customer base on which we can build. This acquisition is intended to be the first of further such moves.
Our goal is to become the leading provider of rescued food in German-speaking regions. By bringing both brands together, we will further raise awareness of our food rescue boxes.”
Raiffeisen-Holding Niederösterreich-Wien, which invests across the food and consumer goods sectors, among others, is taking a 25.1 per cent stake in afreshed. With Raiffeisen-Holding NÖ-Wien on board, afreshed gains a strong strategic partner that supports its long-term growth strategy: expanding its market leadership in German-speaking countries.
The acquisition price has not been disclosed.