Haferkater - A Doughnut Business Case

Haferkater’s case, as featured by DEAL, illustrates how they embraced Doughnut Design across their business model. Let’s unpack their approach:

1) Holistic, Regenerative & Distributive Strategy

• Regenerative Practices:

  • They source German organic oats, freshly flaked in-house to retain nutrients and reduce waste.

  • They minimize packaging waste through reusable containers, collaborations with Foodsharing and TooGoodToGo, and campaigns like “Reusable May”.

• Social Well-being & Transparency:

  • Operate with transparency via both sustainability and “unsustainability” reports, acknowledging where they still fall short.

2) Reinventing Ownership for Sustainability

• Steward‑Ownership Model: Haferkater transitioned to a responsible, mission‑led ownership structure ("Verantwortungseigentum"). Voting rights are held by active employees; profit rights are capped, aligning with long-term values over short-term profit.

• Crowdinvestment & Independence:

  • Instead of typical VCs, they raised €3.3M via crowdfunding by community supporters, plus over €2M from aligned investors with limited decision rights. This allowed them to buy out prior investors and safeguard their vision.

3) Deep Design and Longevity

• The founders rejected growth-at-all-costs and prioritized long-term resilience and autonomy. They seized strategic growth (e.g., Deutsche Bahn pop-ups) but avoided traditional venture capital pitfalls.

4) Lessons & Legacy

• Scalable, purpose-aligned model: Haferkater shows that businesses can scale sustainably—even in traffic-heavy spaces like train stations—without compromising values.

• Community engagement: Their success in crowdfunding underscores how trust and mission can rally a loyal customer base into co‑ownership—fast-tracking a transition to steward‑ownership compared to slower profit-funded models like ShareTribe.

To read more on their Doughnut model, read here diirectly from the DEAL website.