Partnering the grocery saviours: DPD Germany supports the SIRPLUS online shop

• Shipping of goods at cost price

• DPD supports social entrepreneurship within the Ashoka network

• Workforce initiatives raise awareness of food waste

Aschaffenburg/Berlin, 25 September 2019 – In Germany 18 million tons of perfectly good food is simply dumped every year. SIRPLUS, the country's first supermarket selling groceries that would otherwise be disposed of as garbage, is campaigning against this waste of food. For almost two years now DPD Germany has been supporting SIRPLUS founder and CEO Raphael Fellmer - also known from the TV series "Die Höhle der Löwen" ("Dragons' Den") - and is now also shipping goods from the SIRPLUS online shop at cost price.

SIRPLUS currently already operates three so-called "rescue supermarkets" in Berlin, where the groceries are returned to the food cycle for sale in the shop or for home delivery. By 2022 a total of 35 SIRPLUS stores are to be opened throughout Europe. The vision of the "food saviours" is to rescue five million tons of food from the garbage bin over the next ten years. The social impact start-up markets all kinds of food that can no longer be sold in the conventional way - for example because vegetables are misshapen or the sell-by date of products has been reached, or simply because too much of something has been produced.

In addition to providing logistical support in the form of shipping online orders, DPD also promotes the sustainable SIRPLUS approach among its own employees. DPD and SIRPLUS offer interested employees not only "rescue boxes" and online subscriptions, but also a trip to Berlin. There DPD employees can gain an impression of how modern grocery rescue works at first hand. DPD accordingly endorses the declared aim of SIRPLUS to create greater awareness and appreciation of food, together with more sustainable supplies. 

For almost two years now DPD has been supporting SIRPLUS and its founder Raphael Fellmer within the Ashoka social entrepreneurial network. Ashoka is a global network for individuals and organisations who contribute to solving social problems with an entrepreneurial mindset and innovative approaches. The international DPDgroup has been a supporter of Ashoka for many years. Since 2011 DPDgroup has supported 13 social entrepreneurs through Ashoka, and "innovative entrepreneurial action" is one of the four focal points of the group's CSR strategy DrivingChange™.

Carbon-neutral parcel shipping for everyone - at no extra cost to customers

Within the framework of its DrivingChange™ initiative DPDgroup committed itself as early as 2012 to transporting every parcel for every shipper in a carbon-neutral manner - at no additional cost to the customer. To achieve this, DPDgroup relies on a combination of three interlinked principles: measuring, reducing and offsetting. DPDgroup is the global leader in the voluntary offsetting of emissions which are harmful to the climate. Last year DPDgroup offset almost one million tonnes of CO2 equivalent. This means that DPDgroup accounts for almost 3 percent of all voluntarily offset CO2 emissions in Europe. At the same time the CO2 emissions per parcel shipped by the group are falling continuously.