In this episode, we talk with Daniel Überall about the “Kartoffelkombinat,” a cooperatively organized community supported agriculture (CSA) initiative that has been distributing vegetables to the Munich region since 2010. Around 2,000 households receive fresh vegetables from their own production every week. But the project is about far more than food security: the Kartoffelkombinat sees itself as a response to alienation: a space where proximity, participation, and responsibility can come to life.

Daniel shares how an idea grew into a movement that connects agriculture, democracy, and everyday life. He reflects on the challenges of scaling, on communication as a tool for building community, and on what happens when people take their food supply into their own hands.

An episode about empowerment, building solidarity-based structures, and reimagining how agriculture can be organized beyond traditional markets.

Chapters

00:00 – Introduction of Daniel Überall/Kartoffelkombinat

08:24 – Understanding Scaling and Impact

15:38 – Painting the picture: What does Community mean in practice?

25:54 – Game: Enterprise, Impact or Community?

Further information

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kartoffelkombinat

Website: https://www.kartoffelkombinat.de/mitmachen/

Background

The podcast is part of the Leuphana Social Innovation Community at Leuphana University of Lüneburg. We want to connect social innovations, social entrepreneurs in an innovation community setting, where we learn from each other, make knowledge and innovative ideas tangible and visible.