Sirplus founder responds to accusations
At the end of 2021, Sirplus employees reported a high workload and low pay. Founder and CEO Raphael Fellmer now admits 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 suffered 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 its stores in 2021 and now only exists online.
At the end of last year, rbb reported on employees who complained about the poor working conditions at food rescue start-up Sirplus: unpaid overtime, calls when on vacation or sick, a climate of belittlement and garbage in the stores because the bill for the garbage collection was not paid. Founder Raphael Fellmer already admitted to rbb that "financing an ecologically and socially oriented start-up is usually characterized by challenges and delays", but that "most people really enjoy working and have worked at Sirplus".
Fellmer now confirms his assessment to the Tagesspiegel and sees the trigger for 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 passion in building up these stores and yet ultimately lost their jobs. This shattered the dream of saving food for the people affected and combined it in part with the dissatisfaction of the usual organizational challenges in a start-up phase," Fellmer explains to the Tagesspiegel.
At the beginning of 2020, employees wrote a letter to Fellmer in which they criticized the working conditions and workload. According to minutes obtained by rbb, Fellmer said in March 2021 that he had "made mistakes as CEO and as founder and part of the management" and apologized for them. Fellmer emphasized to both media that there is an active error culture and that feedback can also be submitted to him anonymously. The Sirplus business currently only operates online.
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