Unlike ordinary stores or supermarkets, GreenPrice Supermarket specialises in selling “short-dated food” – food having passed the best-before date. Two of the three founders are university students, yet they enjoy running a social enterprise and studying at the same time. “You enjoy many advantages as a student. You can be more flexible while practising your business skills,” grinned Terence Hon, Co-Founder & Business Development Manager of GreenPrice.
Terence was astonished by the serious food wastage problem during a visit to Food Angel a few years ago. In 2016, he teamed up with three partners in the idea competition organised by Good Seed. Making reference to foreign examples, they came up with an idea to resell food passed the best-before date to save edible food from the landfills. The initial suggestions included online solutions such as mobile apps but they finally picked a physical store considering its feasibility: it could attract traffic and could provide food tasting for customers to experience that short-dated food is perfectly safe to eat and tastes just as good. “Nevertheless, we were once accused of swindling, alleged for selling substandard goods. It took quite an effort to explain.”
After two years of hard work, GreenPrice recently opened a new shop and expanded its online business. Yet, more challenges such as high rents and unstable supplies followed. A core member even left the team. Terence, while battling rough tides, has a thought from his heart to share, “Don’t forget the calling of your heart. I always remind myself this social enterprise was founded to rescue food, solving social problems with innovative ideas. A sound business model is important, but never focus only on profits.”
- The SIE Fund has funded the prototype project of GreenPrice. More details can be found here.
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social entrepreneurScope of Services
retail
online servicesBeneficiaries
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(To be updated)