Sirplus founder comments on allegations

Sirplus employees reported a high workload and little salary at the end of 2021. Founder and CEO Raphael Fellmer now admits to mistakes.

Founder and CEO Raphael Fellmer has admitted mistakes in the management of his start-up Sirplus to several media outlets. Founded in 2017, the start-up rescues food that has minor damage and is therefore no longer available in other markets or has passed its best-before date but is still edible. After an initial good start, the start-up had to close all stores in 2021 and now only exists online.

Already at the end of last year, rbb reported on employees who complained about the poor working conditions at the food rescue start-up Sirplus: unpaid overtime, calls during holidays and sick leave, a climate of belittlement and rubbish in the stores because the bill for the rubbish collection was not paid. Founder Raphael Fellmer already admitted to rbb that "funding an ecologically and socially oriented start-up is usually marked by challenges and time delays", but that "most people really enjoy working and have worked at Sirplus".

In an interview with the Tagesspiegel, Fellmer now confirms his assessment and sees the trigger of the employees' reports in the closure of all stores in 2021 and the dismissal of 43 people: "The employees had invested a lot of energy and heart and soul in building up these stores and yet ultimately lost their jobs. This burst the dream of saving food for the people affected and combined in part with the dissatisfaction of the organizational challenges common in a start-up phase," Fellmer explained to the Tagesspiegel.

As early as the beginning of 2020, employees wrote a letter to Fellmer criticizing the working conditions and workload. According to a transcript obtained by rbb, Fellmer said in March 2021 that he had "made mistakes as CEO and as founder as well as part of the management" and apologized for them. Fellmer stressed to both media outlets that there was an active culture of making mistakes and that feedback could also be given to him anonymously. Currently, Sirplus' business only runs online.