Santiago Guglielmetti CEO, Santiago López Silveyra COO, Federico Broggi CFO and Ivan Muñoz CTO.

01. Describe the problem/the industry that you are trying to mediate (and precise the UN SDG-s you are solving).

WINIM was born to combat inefficiency. Unfortunately, we live in a world where a grossly abundant amount of food is wasted yet about 10% of the global population lives in a constant state of hunger. The world’s hunger crisis is known on all corners of the world, however, we are yet to find a unilateral solution that is effective in mending this dire issue. WINIM tackles Goal #2 Zero Hunger of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, aiming to provide a no food wasted solution, reducing hunger and helping businesses survive and thrive. 

  Let's get to the numbers: 1.300 million tonnes of food are lost or wasted worldwide each year, leaving a carbon footprint of 3.3 billion tonnes of CO2 greenhouse gases. Considering that 689 million people live in extreme poverty with less than USD 1.90 per day, it is completely nonsensical to even think that 1/3 of the world's food production ends up in the garbage.

Food waste occurs everyday and everywhere. When you run a food business, you never know when a supply chain problem or consumer trend will change your storage capacity and you will end up overstocked. Additionally, any problem with the labelling or packaging of your products will immediately make them unacceptable to retailers.

WINIM saves products at risk of going to landfill, and sells them with great discounts to our customers while breaking the poverty penalty. WINIM is showing the world that you can be both sustainable and profitable at the same time.

02. How did the idea to create the company come to mind? How did your team come to be?

WINIM was created by three friends, Santiago G., Santiago L.S. and Federico, who have known each other since kindergarten. They finished high school together but kept on being friends and talking throughout their pass through university and Masters. 

Before the company's creation, Santiago G. was working on a company that develops smart containers, analysing data from food companies. He noticed how each company and shipment had food left behind despite being perfectly fine. At the same time, Santiago L. was working at an agribusiness fund analysing their finances. One day, over a phone call, they quickly realized that the problem of food waste was recurrent and appeared within both of their companies.

The group of three noticed that the problem was going on across the food world. That’s when they started studying what Food Loss and Waste is and the impact it had on the environment and the economy.

The three of them always wanted to start a company, and now the problem to solve was urgent and present throughout the world. After analysing different ways to combat Food Waste in each country and what were the needs of several actors in Argentina they resigned their jobs and used their savings to launch WINIM.

03. Why did you choose to participate in the Paris Techstars accelerator program? What are you looking forward to the most? 

At WINIM we have declared war on food waste. Food waste is a global problem, so we needed to go universal with our solution. For it to become a reality, we also needed to have the best partners at our side to triumph. So we knew we had to aim at an accelerator that shared our passion for sustainability and care for the environment.

Techstars is universally known for having the best founders, mentorships and network. And, especially, its accelerator in Paris is focused on some of the greatest challenges our planet faces today such as climate change, food waste, pollution, poverty and disease. We also knew that in order to attack a worldwide problem like this, we must do it through tech, where we could not think about a better partner than Techstars.

So it was an instant match: both our passions are food and sustainability. Furthermore, some of the biggest and most advanced food companies in the world are French. It was a clear choice.

04. What are you the most proud of in your initial journey with your company?

Nothing in life is better than making a dream come true. With WINIM, we made reality our dream of having a real impact on the world with something created with our own hands. It took us lots of sleepless nights, lots of midnight mates discussing what we should do as a next step, but it is paying off.

There are two anecdotes that we are most proud of. Firstly, it was when we were invited to the Buenos Aires Recycling Plant at the beginning of 2022. The guides were showing us some warehouses where they treated different kinds of waste. When we got to the food waste section, without knowing us, the guide started talking about how with “this new app” he hoped that this entire wing of the plant would some day won’t be needed anymore. That new app was WINIM, and he was already sharing our dream.

The second anecdote was when Federico Mallo, in charge of the restaurants in the app, was shopping in one bakery close to his place that was partnered with WINIM. He noticed that the bakery was busier than ever. The owner of the shop noticed that, and told Fede that, thanks to WINIM, he saved extra money from food that used to get wasted and, at the same time, got new customers to try his pastries.

05. How do you plan to measure the positive impact of your company in the next 5 years? Environmentally focused question.

When you shop with WINIM you reduce your carbon footprint, since you are acquiring products that would otherwise be wasted. For our customers, it's a win-win solution, since they are contributing to preserving our planet while saving a lot of money, pretty convenient, right? The exact amount of carbon dioxide we avoid from being released to the atmosphere depends on how many products are rescued.

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