140 tonnes of fruit and vegetables saved and 350 tonnes of CO2 spared to the planet. This is the balance sheet of the first year of activity of Babaco Market, the subscription box service fighting food waste and pollution by delivering fruit and vegetables to your door that look different from what we are used to seeing: products with minor skin blemishes, irregular shapes and smaller-than-usual sizes, which are not accepted by traditional channels such as supermarkets and very often risk being thrown away.

Babaco Market, which has joined the LifeGate Way ecosystem — the group's subsidiary with the aim of creating a network of sustainable start-ups focused on open innovation — fits virtuously into the fruit and vegetable distribution chain and places its bets on seasonality, zero waste and e-commerce.

Babaco Market's fight against waste

It was May 2020 when Francesco Giberti and Luca Masseretti decided to respond to two strongly growing trends, also as a consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic: demand for online grocery services and heightened awareness of the importance of more sustainable consumption. That is how the (plastic-free) boxes of Babaco Market came about — boxes that look not at the beauty but at the goodness of fruit and vegetables. "Call them imperfections, if you like": this is the motto around which the two founders built a start-up that, thanks to steady growth and a sustainable mission, has earned recognition from B Holding and B Heroes, which selected it from among 150 start-ups for the "StartupPerMilano" project, promoted to showcase initiatives that improve people's lives.

Joining Babaco Market in the fight against food waste is Recup, an association active in the markets of the city of Milan that combats food waste and social exclusion. But how does it work? The customer chooses a box — Bonsai, containing around six kilograms of fruit and vegetables at a price of 19 euros, or Jungle, around 10 kilograms at a cost of 27 euros — and the frequency with which they wish to receive it; the Babaco team then selects the finest out-of-the-ordinary produce on the market and delivers it to the door.

In this way, one contributes to reducing environmental impact — every tonne of food wasted is responsible for 4.5 tonnes of CO2 released into the environment —, saves up to 30 per cent compared to the shop, and enhances local production: among the farmers Babaco Market works with, there are also Slow Food presidia and small local growers.

The words of Francesco Giberti, founder of Babaco Market

"We are very satisfied with this first year, during which we have helped to save around 140 tonnes of fruit and vegetables and to prevent 350 tonnes of CO2 from being released into our atmosphere. We currently work with 100 producers spread across the entire national territory and the products we include in our boxes are 100 per cent made in Italy," explains Francesco Giberti, one of Babaco Market's founders. An idea that has appealed to consumers, to the point of delivering the start-up double-digit growth in terms of user base, orders and turnover.

"To date, active subscribers to the service number more than two thousand and we have handled a total volume of over 20,000 deliveries. We cover more than 40 municipalities across Milan and its hinterland, Monza, Brianza, and from this month we are also reaching the province of Varese with Busto Arsizio and surrounding areas. We are growing monthly at an average of 30 per cent in terms of user base and 54 per cent in terms of orders and turnover."

In short, what Babaco Market offers is a new way of engaging with reality and doing the shopping — one that appeals to consumers who are increasingly attentive to environmental issues.