Matsmart: doing the climate a favour

“Around a third of the food that is produced globally goes to waste. That’s literally billions of tonnes and it’s costing us 10% of global GHG emissions. In our line of work, we’re just trying to help the sustainable reform of a hugely inefficient system,” says Karl Andersson, CEO of Matsmart, an online marketplace that recirculates products that, because of overproduction, overstocking or production flaws, would otherwise end up wasted.

“We have roughly 1000 food and consumer products on our site at any one time, but several thousand move through it every month. Customers won’t know what’s on offer from one week to the next, but it’s always at a discount,” he explains. “We buy them directly from the producers, early in the value chain. There are so many perfectly good products thrown away at that stage. How crazy is that? We’ve recently saved eight tonnes of breakfast cereals from a producer who couldn’t sell them because the syrup was the wrong colour. We stepped in and filled the gap.”

Right from the start, Matsmart’s platform won huge support: “Our success is driven by the community advocating our brand. It has clearly awoken something in people. Making sure products get a second chance in the market is a huge win for climate; it saves 90% of emissions - and who doesn’t want to save the planet, right? But it’s also a win for people’s pocket, especially now with inflation, prices exploding and some even having to choose between heating and eating.”

As the company’s reputation and success grew, they decided to try the concept beyond Swedish borders. “Norrsken VC,” (a venture capital firm backed by the EIF under the EU’s Investment Plan for Europe) “was our first impact investor coming on board, which sent a strong signal for others to pitch in as well. They saw the clear sustainability potential of our solution. We dedicated their equity investment to our growth plans because we see growth as imperative for real impact. We need it to be able to make a difference to the food system.”

Mastmart has since expanded to Finland, Denmark, and Germany and “now we are entering the UK which is an exciting new market for us,” he says. “We’ve shown that circularity has huge sustainability and environmental benefits. It makes total sense for the economy and the planet. What we want to achieve ultimately is fill the gap in the food chain and end global wastage for good.”

Company: Matsmart (Sweden)

Sector: ecommerce

EIF financing:  InnovFin Equity, EFSI sub-window 1 

Financial intermediary: Norrsken

For further information about EIF intermediaries in Norway, please refer to:
http://www.eif.org/what_we_do/where/se