These Berliners Travel to Crisis Areas and Help Farmers

Salem El-Mogaddedi and Gernot Würtenberger aim to support fair and direct trade with small farmers by importing local agricultural products from crisis and conflict areas.

For this purpose, they founded the start-up Conflictfood. Now they travel the world personally, searching for the best products. Their project aims to tackle the causes of flight and support educational institutions on-site. They are confident: This is the taste of peace.

A trip through Afghanistan in 2015 turned Salem and Gernot's lives and careers upside down. What started as an invitation from Salem's father, who supports many humanitarian projects as a doctor, surprisingly led them to return with the idea for a sustainable start-up back to Berlin.

By chance, they learned on their journey about a women's project in the west of the country that transformed fields previously used for opium cultivation into saffron fields. Fascinated, they visited the collective and suddenly found themselves harvesting saffron with these independent, proud women in western Herat. 'One morning, we were out in the fields picking saffron,' Salem recounted. The two men made the spontaneous decision to buy the saffron, bring it back to Germany, and share this story.

Salem and Gernot left their well-paid jobs and delved into the world of social entrepreneurship, with success. By 2016, they won the first prize with Conflictfood, with many others following, such as the 'iF Social Impact Prize 2018' and the 'Green Product Award'.

Traveling to crisis and conflict areas has become a fixed component of their business concept, allowing them to discover new products and support new projects on-site. Following Afghanistan, trips to Myanmar and Palestine ensued. The awareness that these places are not always safe travels with them, but it does not deter the founders from their mission.

Even though both founders - especially in Afghanistan - often need protection, they have only had positive experiences and have seen the countries from a completely different perspective - a beautiful one that is often overshadowed by war reports.

An important point for them: 'We are not adventure or thrill-seeking tourists, we are doing this to strengthen trade, learn something, and bring those stories back - because aside from terror and conflict, there are also incredibly beautiful stories,' Salem explains.

So, in essence, the specialties that Conflictfood imports and sells are more like a vehicle for these stories than simply food items. Salem and Gernot have been particularly impressed by Afghan hospitality, which is second to none and by no means taken for granted.

'It's incredible how welcoming and inviting people are there - despite much misery and poverty, the people are very dignified and proud,' says Salem.

These personal experiences quickly made the founders realize that with Conflictfood, they were not just strengthening structures and directing funds back to educational projects in the source country.

In particular, the educational mission here in the West has to be part of the whole: 'First and foremost, it's about breaking down barriers, especially those in the mind.' And what better way to do that than with food culture, which brings everyone together around a table?!

For many, the Conflictfood founders have become role models, giving talks or organizing events. However, they have no secret to success, and instead encourage people to simply have the courage to make a change.

After all, they also came back from Afghanistan with just a few kilos of saffron and a good idea in their luggage. And if everything had gone wrong, at worst they would have returned with a large supply of saffron.

But their concept worked out, and they plan to expand their range. They are currently in talks with farmers in northern Syria and Yemen. Here in the United States, they hope to inspire more people to reflect on their consumption habits: 'Consumption is essentially a political stance - because I can make a decision every day to either support or go against the world.'