New European Bauhaus Prizes 2023

Project category

Identify the award category for which this project is being submitted
Shaping a circular industrial ecosystem and supporting life-cycle thinking

Email user
sarolta@rakun.hu

Basic information
Project title
Rakun Boxcommunity

Full Project Title
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Please provide a short, catchy description of your project to be used in communication towards the public.
With take-away and food delivery becoming more popular, the number of single use boxes that end up in the trash is on the rise. By signing up for a membership in the RAKUN app, customers can order or take their food home in reusable, stainless steel boxes for a fixed monthly price. The next time they want to use the box, they drop off the one they have with them, and the restaurant replaces their used box with another one that has already been properly washed and disinfected.

What was the geographical scope of your project?
National

Where was your project implemented?
Member State(s) and Western Balkans
Hungary

If relevant, insert names of region(s)/municipality(ies) involved
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Does your project address mainly urban or rural issues?
Mainly urban

Does your project refer to a physical transformation of the built environment or other types of transformations (hard or soft investments)?
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)

Has your project benefited from EU programmes and/or funds?
Yes

Which fund(s)?
European Institute of Innovation and Technology : Climate KIC grant

Has your project won an EU prize with a monetary value awarded?
Yes

What was the prize?
23000 EUR

Is your project fully completed
Yes

Please indicate a date (mm/yy)
2020-12-31

On whose behalf are you submitting the application?
As a representative of an organisation
Please provide the contact details for the project promoter (the individual or representative of the organisation authorised to represent the project)
- Name of the organisation(s): Rakun Kft.
  Type of organisation: For-profit company
  First name of representative: Sarolta
  Last name of representative: Horvátth
  Gender: Female
  Nationality: Hungary
  Function: CEO
  Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Hóvirag str. 21.
  Town: Veszprem
  Postal code: 8200
  Country: Hungary
  Direct Tel: +36304294819
  E-mail: sarolta@rakun.hu
  Website: https://rakun.hu/
Social Media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, etc.)
- URL: https://www.facebook.com/rakuncommunity
- URL: https://www.instagram.com/rakuncommunity/
- URL: https://www.linkedin.com/company/73928445
In case my project is selected as a finalist of the NEB Prizes 2023, I agree to share the name (individual and/or organisation’s), email address, website and social media accounts indicated above with other NEB Prizes finalists. I also agree to publish the name (individual and/or organisation’s), website and social media accounts indicated above next to the public description of my project in the channels of the European Commission.
Yes

How did you hear about the New European Bauhaus Prizes?
NEB Newsletter

Description of the project
Please provide a summary of your project.
By signing up for a membership in the RAKUN app, customers can order or take away their food in reusable, stainless steel boxes for a fixed monthly price. The next time they want to use the box, they give them back to the courier or drop off the one they have with them, and the restaurant replaces their used box with another one that has already been properly washed and disinfected.
The app is needed to ensure the tracking of the boxes in the ecosystem. They are high value assets and we have a couple of safety measures built in to reduce the number of lost boxes. The tracking is based on QR-code scanning which is convenient for the users and the restaurants alike.
Restaurants pay a low rental fee for the boxes. For the restaurants that can’t wash them up, we will offer a service in which we collect, commercially clean and redistribute the boxes. We plan to do this with bike couriers to make sure that the logistics is also carbon neutral.
By monitoring the movement of boxes with the help of QR codes, we guarantee that our partner restaurants always have enough replacement boxes in stock.
Our B2B market consists of restaurants whose leadership feels responsibility for the huge amount of garbage they generate with packaging the meal they serve. They are the ones who serve a daily menu or have limited space to sit in and therefore have bigger take-away traffic or have home delivery options.

Our target customers are the ones who don’t like/cannot cook or don’t have time for that. Especially people between 24-40 years, living in a bigger city in Hungary, mostly women (who are more sensitive to environmental protection issues), who can use a smartphone and have internet access (these are essential to use our services).

Please indicate the main themes of your project with 5 key words.
zerowaste

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
sharing-economy

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
circularity

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
sustainable resource management

Please indicate the main themes of your project with key words
smart technology

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of sustainability and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
According to the calculations of the Association of Conscious Customers, more than 13 million plastic disposable food boxes are thrown in the trash every year in Budapest alone. This creates a lot of plastic waste that is not recycled because it is contaminated and ends up in landfills for hundreds of years. Our team has the motivation to eliminate this specific waste. Our generation became very dependent on the comfortable solution of throw-away boxes. With digitalization, we provide the same comfort with no plastic waste. With this project we also stand into a sustainable resource management in a sharing-economy, because our users (guests who order their food in our boxes) don’t buy the boxes but rent them and can give back when they don’t want to use them. This way we don’t need to manufacture so many boxes.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of aesthetics and quality of experience for people (through design, positive emotions and cultural benefits) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
Having your food in a single use plastic box is neither a quality of experience nor healthy and especially not environmentally friendly. With our beautiful and drip-free reusable stainless steel boxes we can give people back the feeling of exclusivity without any frustration of harming the environment. Having a meal delivered reduces the eating experience a lot. Lots of people do not even take their food out of the box, but only make it hot in a microwave oven. With our services they not only can have their food without generating waste but also can gain back the feeling of having a good meal. When we were looking for packaging alternatives our goal was to find the best design and quality while not sacrificing on usability. This ensures that we received a plethora of requests to buy our boxes B2B and B2C as well. However, our strategic decision is not to sell any boxes as it would disrupt our end goal of a sustainable circular subscription based service.

Please give information about the key objectives of your project in terms of inclusion (ranging from accessibility and affordability for all to inclusive governing systems, design for all principles or new societal models) and how these have been met. Please highlight how the project can be exemplary in this context.
We believe that protecting the environment is a common cause and people should not underestimate their own individual impact. Talking with restaurants it turned out that they feel responsible about generating so much packaging waste, and they would be really happy if someone would come up with a solution. We also have lots of feedback from the guests, who also feel frustrated about making their dustbin full of single use plastic boxes after a good lunch. So we designed a project where everyone can be satisfied. Restaurants wash the boxes that’s why they only pay a symbolic rent for the boxes we supply. Renting the boxes as a guest is also economical. They can subscribe for a low fixed price for which they can use the boxes unlimited time. After 3-4 usage in a month they can save money compared to the prices of the single use boxes. Now we have ~100 partner restaurants who are using Rakun boxes in 15 cities in Hungary. Our goal is to have at least 200 partners at the end of 2023 to make our service more accessible. Now we have more than 3200 registrated users and ~500 of them are subsribers who are using our boxes.

Please explain the way citizens benefiting from or affected by the project and civil society have been involved in the project and what has been the impact of this involvement on the project
The two founders of Rakun Box community are the leaders of the Foundation of Responsible Dining (Felelős Gasztrohős Alapítvány: www.gasztrohos.hu). They bring their experiences from the non-profit sphere so basically the design originated from civil society. We also talked to our followers and they want us to solve the problem of having their meal delivered without generating waste. We make surveys regularly since the beginning and talk/chat/write to users and try to build their remarks in the process.

Please explain how different stakeholders at various levels (local, regional, national, European) were engaged in the design and implementation of the project. Please highlight what the added value of their engagement was.
During our work at the Foundation of Responsible Dining we have got several feedback from our followers that restaurants weren't willing to accept their own boxes to take the lunch in it, because of hygienic reason. We talked to restaurants and understood their fear of the risk of cross contamination which can occur by the not properly washed boxes. With the participation of several restaurants we have worked out this swap system, which is appropriate for both actors.
We had a pilot with 3 restaurants for the material of the boxes, during which it turned out that reusable plastic boxes are not durable enough, and we decided to switch to stainless steel. After that we made a 2nd pilot, with ~10 restaurants for the business model in which restaurants bought our boxes and sold them to their customer. Because of the COVID, restaurants didn't have enough money to buy the boxes, that's why we changed our business modell and give the boxes for rent for very little money.

Please explain which disciplines and/ or knowledge fields were reflected in the design and implementation of your project. Please explain how representatives of these different fields interacted with each other, and what the added value of this process was.
During our market research we have found that affordability is one of the key factors in this region as restaurants typically charge extra for the take away packaging. Thus our customer prices are set up in a way that they are cheaper than this takeaway cost if you use it 2-3 times a month. This is an example of how our business design considered affordability and accessibility from its first step.

Please give information on the results, outcomes and impacts achieved by your project in relation to the category you apply for. This includes also benefits from the project for direct and indirect beneficiaries
Our project represents a unique point of view which is really rare, especially in Hungary. We created a service which is based on the sharing economy. The reusable Rakun boxes stay in our property, guests and restaurants can only use them and if they don’t need them, they have to give them back. We try to avoid recycling waste, instead of wanting to prevent the generation of it by using materials which are really durable and with a system (renting) which allows us to treat our resources sparingly. The bottom of the boxes are made of stainless steel which can be used more than 1000 times, and after its life cycle it can be recycled without deterioration. The lids are made of PP to be drip-free and can also be recycled. With the subscription renting model we will need less boxes in the system than with a deposit system, where everybody has a box at home which is not worth bringing back so in the end it has no real big environmental impact. According to a life cycle assessment of the Denkstatt Hungary Ltd., after 25-26 uses of a Rakun box the CO2 equivalent will be lower than using PP boxes manufactured in Hungary. (https://denkstatt.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/background-report-lca-rakun.pdf)
There are 102 restaurants in Hungary which already use our boxes in 15 different cities. Till the end of December we have saved more than 16.000 disposable boxes with our ~500 subscribers which is equivalent to ~640 kg waste.

Please provide documents showing the results, outcomes and impacts of your project
PDF
PDF
Please highlight the innovative character of the project, when compared to mainstream actions in the field of the project
We are providing a service for restaurants that enables guests to request their take-away food in reusable food containers. Our food containers are durable stainless steel boxes and are tracked via QR code and an application. The solution has two digital interfaces. A user-facing application to keep track of your boxes and available restaurants in the network. Also, a website for restaurants to track their box inventory. Our service can be also used via third-party delivery providers like Foodpanda and Wolt. As a side venture, we also provide consultation to restaurants regarding sustainability and have a sustainability certification program.
The solution is very innovative and supports the green transition of food delivery. We have seen growing interest from restaurants in the past period. The key element of our system is an application used to track the boxes and make sure they are not lost in the transactions. The use of the application adds additional complexity to the food ordering process compared to single-use throw-away boxes.

Please describe the methodology or approach used in your project.
We are working in a shared economy system, where the boxes stay in our property and neither the restaurants nor the costumers can bought the boxes only rent them and for this fixed monthly price they can use our boxes unlimited times in all of our partners (~100 restaurants in 15 cities of Hungary).
We contract with the restaurants for which they get the boxes and communication materials and appearance at our homepage, and at our social media platforms. We are also monitoring the stock of the boxes with the help of our application which is necessery for the costumer to bring or give back the boxes to the restaurants.
They not only can use the boxes for take away but also for delivery orders if the restaurant has its own courier, who can bring the used boxes back to the restaurants. We are about to make a campaigne with WOLT (delivery firm) and integrate our system with theirs, to make possible to order the food in Rakun boxes through the WOLT application too.

Please describe which elements of your project could be replicated or transferred to other places, groups of beneficiaries and context. This may involve for example aspects of the methodology, technology, processes, products, learnings etc.
We have found multiple companies around the world trying to solve the same problem. However we have found that the business model of each is different and unique. This means that there is not a one size fits all approach in this business and we have done multiple market studies and interviews to understand what would be the best working business model in Hungary. This methodology can be documented and reused in other countries/regions as well.

Please explain what kind of global challenges the project addresses by providing local solutions
According to the calculations of the Association of Conscious Customers, more than 13 million plastic disposable food boxes are thrown in the trash every year in Budapest alone. But according to research published in the journal Nature Sustainability food containers are the third most common plastic waste type of oceans. This kind of plastic waste usually can’t be recyclable because it is contaminated by food and that’s why it ends up in landfills for hundreds of years. Our team has the motivation to eliminate this specific waste. Our generation became very dependent on the comfortable solution of throw-away boxes. With digitalization, we provide the same comfort with no plastic waste. We start our project in Hungary, but we also intend to extend the services toward East-European countries.
Please attach at least 6 high resolution images (or other types of visual representations, if images are not possible) to your application.
If you would like to upload additional documentation, please upload or write below
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Yes

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Yes

By submitting this application, I declare that I am not related to the entities subject to EU restricted measures under Article 29 of the Treaty on the European Union (TEU) and subject to Article 215 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the EU (TFEU)1, and entities covered by Commission Guidelines No 2013/C 205/05), which are not eligible to participate in any capacity.
Yes

By ticking this box, you declare that all the information provided in this form is factually correct, that you assume sole liability in the event of a claim relating to the activities carried out in the framework of the contest, that the proposed project has not been proposed for the New European Bauhaus Prizes in any other category or strand and that it has not been subject to any type of investigation, which could lead to a financial correction because of irregularities or fraud.
Yes

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Yes

By submitting your application, you understand that all the applications that meet the eligibility requirements will be shared for the purposes of the selection processes, and notably published on the secured platform prizes.new-european-bauhaus.eu and for the purposes of the promotion of these on the New European Bauhaus website and/or other European Commission communication channels. In this sense, the applications would be widely available. Applicants should ensure that they present their projects, in such a way that they could be shared without giving rise to intellectual property related concerns. If your submission is selected as one of the finalists, it will additionally be shared for the purpose of the public vote that will take place. The European Union is granted a licence to use and share your application with the general public and the official external experts for the purposes of the selection process, including the voting. The European Union has the right to use the images and visual materials and the description provided in the application for communication purposes related to the contest and beyond. Rights granted comprise the right to store, reproduce, display, publish and communicate or distribute copies in electronic or digital format, including, but not only, through the internet. Unless you have disclosed your name, the European Commission has no obligation to share your name when using or disseminating your contribution to the public. The European Union cannot be held responsible in case any submitted project, is found to infringe third party’s rights. The European Union shall be neither responsible for the use that third parties may do of the applications or related content.
Yes

By submitting your application, you acknowledge that you read and understand that the ‘Guide to Applicants’ of the NEB Prizes 2023, available online in the website of the NEB Prizes 2023, is an integral part of this application form and that it must therefore be observed when completing and submitting your application.
Yes