DÖRRWERK GmbH

The idea for the DÖRRWERK was born in summer 2014 in Berlin. I had just met with my school friend Raphael, who told me about the huge quantities of fruit and vegetables that end up in the barrel or in the biogas plant every day just because they no longer look flawless. The idea was born quickly: I wanted to tackle the waste of food in an economically viable way while making delicious snacks at the same time.

After a few weeks of experimenting in my kitchen, the first fruit paper was made: wafer-thin and crispy and 100% fruit. And that was so delicious that I wanted to make more out of it. So I decided to take a break from working as a doctor and rented some fruit paper from my friends in the gastro kitchen in order to dry it day in, day out. I needed 30 days for the first 300 bags. And they were completely sold on the market within 2 days.

So I needed a bigger kiln - and that was only possible with the help of a crowdfunding which took place in January 2015. With the collected money I could afford the first large kiln.

But the small DÖRRWERK urgently needed reinforcements and my old friend Jonas was so enthusiastic about the idea and the product that it didn't take long to convince him to join in.

From then on we cut, pureed and dried together in our first own rooms in Kreuzberg many hundreds of kg of saved fruit per week. Together we worked on the equipment, recipes and made great plans for the future.

Because one thing became clear: If we wanted to influence the waste of food, we would have to do it on a grand scale - otherwise the effect would not be noticeable and otherwise our company would never be able to support itself.

We borrowed - by our standards - a large pile of money from the bank and equipped ourselves with other stoves that were much more energy-efficient. And we found the most beautiful place for it: Marienpark Berlin - a former municipal utility site with great old halls and a water tower.

In summer 2016 Philipp came to us - our third man in the permanent team of the Dörrwerk. He would certainly have come earlier, but it took a little while to convince him to move from Hamburg to Berlin. The three of us really got started and expanded our production, so that today we can already produce more than 1000 bags of fruit paper a day.

Now we are here - we have learned an incredible amount, worked even more, of course made many mistakes and still made the right decisions. We have grown and gained great employees, such as our production manager Karolina, who has her hat on when it comes to quality and hygiene.

But without the great encouragement and support of our friends we would never have been able to do this. Thanks to everyone who was there for us, who cut fruit with us all night long and who fed us mentally and culinarily. We are really happy to have built up this project so far and we will not stop for a long time.