Zero Gachis

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Zero Gachis: Solutions to help supermarkets reduce food wastage

Nantes
Year Founded:
2012
Organization type: 
for profit
Project Stage:
Scaling
Website:
http://www.zero-gachis.com
Twitter: 
http://www.twitter.com/ZeroGachis
Facebook: 
http://www.facebook.com/ZeroGachis
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Project Summary
Elevator Pitch

Concise Summary: Help us pitch this solution! Provide an explanation within 3-4 short sentences.

Zero Gachis provides supermarkets an efficent way to apply discounts on close to the sell-by products, to promote them in the store and to comunicate online about the discounts so consumers know where to go to save food. We achieved to reduce by 50% the food wastage in partners supermarkets.

WHAT IF - Inspiration: Write one sentence that describes a way that your project dares to ask, "WHAT IF?"

What if supermarkets never throw anything to the garbage ever ?
About Project

Problem: What problem is this project trying to address?

Supermarkets don't succeed in selling everything so they apply discounts on products approaching their sell-by date... but the consumers needs to be at the right place at the right time to buy them. There was no way to comunicate about those discounts before Zero Gachis.

Solution: What is the proposed solution? Please be specific!

We provide printing solutions so the supermarkets can efficently stick the close to sell-by date products, and in the meantime Zero Gachis get the information about discounts applied on products to put it online. Through www.zero-gachis.com, consumers can locate the food approaching its sell-by date and choose where to go to buy them. We also help partners supermarkets to promote products in-store with a new marketing approch, giving sense to the consumers purchase.
Impact: How does it Work

Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.

A supermarket that apply by himself discounts on food approaching its sell by date achieve to sell a few of the products. With Zero Gachis, we cut off by 50% the food being wasted with our online website and in-store advertising.

Impact: What is the impact of the work to date? Also describe the projected future impact for the coming years.

Within a coupke of years of experimentation, in 15 supermarkets, we managed to save more than 300 tons of food from the garbage, and to let consumers save more than 2 millions € (discounts are around -50% of the initial price). It's a win-win partnership between supermarkets and consumers.

Spread Strategies: Moving forward, what are the main strategies for scaling impact?

Talking only about France, 750 000 tons of fresh food is unsold every year. If we access to 50% of the market within 5 years, we could save more than 150 000 tons of food from garbage. We plan to expand our services in Europe into 2 years so it could be possible to save more than half a milion tons of fresh food, and make Europeans save a lot of money !
Sustainability

Financial Sustainability Plan: What is this solution’s plan to ensure financial sustainability?

We took loans, won some startup contests and successfully won a regional government grant to get 140K€ in order to launch the web platform and develop the printing solution. We now have a reccuring turnover that helps us to scale but we may raise funds in 2015 to accelerate and expand our services in France. It's too early to talk about figures as we just started to scale and we don't have a proper vision on how fast we sell.

Marketplace: Who else is addressing the problem outlined here? How does the proposed project differ from these approaches?

There is 2 french startups called Phenix and Eqosphere that are helping supermarkets to improve their donation to food banks. The french supermarkets have a 60% tax deduction if they donate food 48hours before the sell-by date but within the 48 last hours, we can help supermarkets to sell products directly from the store.
Team

Founding Story

When I was student, I went to my favourite supermarket because I knew I could find discounts on close to the sell-by date food. One day, I talked about that with my brother, Christophe, and he told me that he was passing in front of 3 supermarkets comunting back from school, and that he always stopped in the one that did not discounts on food approaching their sell-by date. He told my that if he knew where to stop, it would have stopped at the right place. That's know all began. We both contacted a childhood friend, Nicolas, in order to develop the web platform and we all 3 started to do our best to save food in supermarkets.

Team

1. Paul-Adrien Menez, CEO / Sales and co-founder, from a french engineering school. Full-time. 2. Christophe Menez, CFO / Sales and co-founder, from a french business school. Full-time. 3. Nicolas Pieuchot, CTO and co-founder, from a french and netherland compter sciences university. Full-time.
About You
About You
First Name

Paul-Adrien

Last Name

Menez

About Your Project
Organization Name
How long has your organization been operating?

Project
Organization Country

France, Nantes

Country where this project is creating social impact

France

What awards or honors has the project received?
Funding: How is your project financial supported?

Individuals, Regional government, Customers, Other.

Supplemental
Sector

Waste and Packaging.

Audience: Who have you identified as your customer/recipient groups and do these groups value your solution for different reasons? How do you engage different customer/recipient groups to deliver your solution?

Our customers are supermarkets. They love our products because we help them to reduce food wastage by 50% in average (so they increase their turnover, increase their margins, and improve their image as well). The consumers also love to locate discounted food because they can save money by doing a sustainable purchase, but the service is totally free to consumers. We engage supermarkets through a 1-to-1 meeting, and we scale with supermarket's regional/national platforms.

Scaling the solution: How would the prize money and publicity help you to achieve your objectives over the next two years?

The prize money would help us to hire a proper sales team to scale. We have a product that solve a problem and that fits a needing from supermarkets. We now have to scale our solutions in France. We also need to feredate a community of consumers to go in partners supermarkets so a targeted publicity could engage environment-aware consumers.

Experience: Please provide examples of any previous entrepreneurial initiatives you have pioneered

I was the president of a non-profit organization that gave jobs to student from my engineering school. They developed software for local companies. I also had previous experiences with 2 import/export businesses.

The 2 other co-founders of Zero-Gachis and I also had a previous startup idea that we developed (we had a functionnal prototype and a business plan) but we all got an opporutnity to study abroad so we decided to stand-by the project.

Are you are eligible to attend the Accelerator event in Cambridge and subsequent events in London, UK in January, 2015?

yes

Will you require a visa to enter the UK?

Are you are a current Unilever employee?