Supermarkets and discounters achieved enormous increases in sales during the Corona crisis.

Those who could not go to the restaurant or on a trip were able to afford something special for their home.

The market for delivery services also benefits from this, where financially strong start-ups such as Gorillas or Flink are now attacking the market leader Rewe.

And two ambitious young people from Bad Homburg also want to get into the food delivery business.

“Groceries on demand” is the name of the company that Patrick Barme and Max de Boer, one 19, the other 20, founded last year after graduating from the Bad Homburg Humboldt School.

The two have been taking orders since the beginning of July.

So far, the partner is a single supermarket, Edeka Georg in downtown Bad Homburg.

But the two founders, who are starting their business studies in the fall, still have big plans and want to bring together more supermarkets and discounters on their app, which is called the company.

"We want to become the first cross-supermarket delivery service in Germany," says Barme confidently.

In Bad Homburg they are starting small, have distributed flyers everywhere and put up posters with a telephone number on which older people can order.

“We want to make shopping easier and safer for people,” says Barme.

A good 35 customers have registered via the app so far, among them employed, elderly and sick people who need help.

For a service fee of 3.99 euros and a surcharge of ten percent on the food ordered, the founders deliver from an assortment of around 2700 Edeka articles by car.

Customers should receive their order in less than an hour.

Payment is currently made by credit card or in cash at the front door.

Earnings above the industry average

The idea is to be able to process and deliver a larger number of orders at the same time in the future.

The employees who they want to recruit for this on an independent basis should earn 13 and 14 euros per hour, better than is customary in the industry.

When three to five orders are delivered, the business begins to pay off.

Barme and de Boer see their market opportunities in medium-sized cities with a population of less than 200,000.

One advantage: unlike the new express delivery services such as Gorillas or Flink, they do not have to maintain their own storage space.

“We have the better cost structure,” says Barme.

Such considerations will also be at stake when the two of them take their start-up with them to the private university WHU in Koblenz in autumn.

Her role models are companies like Flixbus and Zalando, which, according to Barme, have their roots in this university.

Balancing studies and a company is a challenge.

“But we are hardworking,” says Barme.

They used to be, they drove out pizza when they were at school and put money aside for Christmas.

So they got the capital together for the app development, which they helped to support.

It is hardly surprising that they found their first customers in Bad Homburg, a city with higher-income households.

When time means money, it usually doesn't matter whether a pound of butter costs 20 cents more or less.