With practiced movements, Julia Hanusova quarters a loaf of bread, slips one of the pieces into a plastic bag and holds it out to her son – whereupon six-year-old Albert wraps a cap around the bag. Whoops, it ends up in a box in which there are already umpteen packets of bread. Next to it are other boxes with lettuce and cucumber, with apples and bananas. All this food was until recently in the supermarket and should end up in the garbage there, but was then rescued and now goes to people in need. Responsible for this is the “Association for Food Rescue and Against Resource Waste” from Unterhaching, which has almost 200 members such as Julia Hanusova and has established a considerable network over the years – to save food, to conserve resources and to help people and animals.
At the center of this network is the club’s founder, Sabine Spieler, who this Saturday, along with half a dozen women, grants, sorts and packs. Namely in the driveway in front of her house in Unterhaching, where her husband has built a wooden hut – as a meeting point and storage place for the club. “Saturday is our day of the big fight,” says Sabine Spieler. After a team of around 30 drivers delivered food every day during the week that should be thrown away in the supermarket because of its condition or the best before date, the fruit, vegetables and bread are now being prepared for further use. Again and again, cars from aid organizations that the association supports are parked in front of the door – from the animal table Ottobrunn to dogs in need. The children’s home in Putzbrunn and the animal shelter also receive regular deliveries from Unterhaching. And every Sunday a package with food and sometimes clothes goes to Munich, where the things are distributed to the homeless.
Sabine Spieler speaks of a “culture shock”
How did it start with your club and where does it get involved? Just as Sabine Spieler is about to answer this question, a car is rolling backwards up the driveway: two members are returning from a tour of the discounter; now it has to be cleared out first. And what the club members drag into the hut is remarkable: boxes of bananas, pallets with pots of herbs, dozens of salads, bags of apples and and and – a trunk full of groceries. “As a normal person you don’t even notice what is thrown away in the supermarkets,” says Sabine Spieler after the things have been stowed away. “It’s just weird what a throwaway society we live in.”
This was first shown to her nine years ago. At that time she wanted to collect rejected food for a friend who ran a sanctuary in Ingolstadt. After a supermarket in Munich had agreed to her request, she came up with a few bags – “because I thought I might get a couple of heads of lettuce for the chickens,” said Player. “But then they took the fruit and vegetables out there in pallets. That was a culture shock for me” – and the starting signal for their commitment. This has grown over the years, when Sabine Spieler first moved to Riemerling and then to Unterhaching in 2018. Today her association cooperates with twelve supermarkets, where he picks up groceries six days a week. Whereby Susanne Spieler emphasizes: “The boards always have priority, we only take the leftovers. But there is so much food that is thrown away. And the supermarkets are happy because they save the disposal.”
A hands-on association that lives from everyone’s commitment.
(Photo: Claus Schunk)
The club members, in turn, save a lot of money for shopping – after all, they too can help themselves with the food. “But if you only want to participate because of the money, you are wrong with us,” says Sabine Spieler, who emphasizes: “We are a participation association” – because it would not work without the commitment of the members. Karen Kaufmann, for example, lends a hand in the club hut three times a week, from morning to night, as she says – this is also the case today, on her 84th birthday, which the women celebrate with champagne and cake. “I just think the idea is good,” says the sprightly lady from Riemerling, who has been with us since 2016. “You can do something about waste and you can also help people.”
These are exactly the reasons that motivate Sabine Spieler. The trained teacher is committed to her association for around 30 hours a week, alongside her jobs in the catering trade. It is about doing “something useful”, she says. She also wants to draw attention to the daily waste of resources. Due to the many trips to the supermarkets and the heavy loads in the trunk, she has already worn out several cars. This is one of the reasons why the club is saving on its own car, ideally a van, says Sabine Spieler.
For the time being, however, she will continue to sit behind the wheel of her private car to collect and deliver food, animal feed, clothing and the like. A special load was brought on the way on the third Advent: In addition to the usual groceries, the association had packed hundreds of packs of gingerbread, dozen of chocolate Santa Clauses and more than 300 jars of home-baked cookies for the homeless in Munich – as an Advent surprise for people at the Street.