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Matsmart sells discounted surplus groceries and household goods online, rescuing food that would otherwise be thrown away and passing the savings to shoppers.
Matsmart is an online grocery store with a twist: most of what it sells was never supposed to reach a normal shelf. The company buys surplus food and household goods — cans past their "best before" date, products with damaged packaging, seasonal items a manufacturer overproduced, or goods a retailer ordered too many of — and resells them at steep discounts to ordinary shoppers across Europe. Customers get cheap groceries delivered to their door; the stuff avoids the landfill.
The business works because waste is baked into the food system. Manufacturers and retailers routinely end up with perfectly edible products they can't sell through normal channels, because a "best before" date passed, a label changed, or a promotion ended. Matsmart steps in as the buyer of last resort, takes that inventory off their hands, and lists it online at prices well below regular retail. It earns money on the spread — buying cheap, selling cheap, and keeping a margin in between. Its pitch to shoppers is simple: pay less, and feel good about rescuing food. Its pitch to suppliers is equally simple: turn a write-off into at least some cash. The company was founded in Sweden in 2014 and grew into one of the better-known names in the European "surplus food" niche, expanding into several markets including Finland and Denmark. It has raised venture capital to fund that expansion, and it competes in a crowded space that includes dedicated surplus-food apps and the discount arms of big grocery chains. The core challenge is supply: the business only works if it can consistently source enough surplus goods, and that flow depends on the wasteful habits of the food industry continuing.
The honest catch is that this is a low-margin, logistics-heavy business. Food is bulky and cheap, delivery costs real money, and customers expect bargains, so profits are thin. It is also inherently opportunistic — the product mix changes constantly depending on what happens to be surplus that week, which makes planning and customer loyalty harder than at a normal supermarket. Still, the model has a real tailwind: regulators and consumers increasingly frown on food waste, and every thrown-away pallet is a potential Matsmart order.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026