LibreOffice case study: Flotte Karotte

Companies around the world use LibreOffice to reduce costs, improve their privacy, and free themselves from dependence on single vendors. Today we’re talking to Flotte Karotte, a German company with 50 employees that recently made a generous donation to support the LibreOffice project and community:

What is Flotte Karotte?

Flotte Karotte is an organic delivery service. We have been in business since 1996. Starting out as a marketing channel for regional growers with the aim of bringing organic produce to the masses, we have since become a full-range supplier. This means that in addition to fruit and vegetables, we also deliver bread, meat and sausage, dairy products, pasta, grains/seeds, sauces, spreads, cosmetics, etc. In other words, everything you would find in an organic supermarket. However, we focus on brands that are loyal to the organic trade and are not usually sold in conventional food retail outlets. We also prioritise association products (Bioland, Demeter) over EC organic products wherever possible.

We attach great importance to seasonality and regionality. Of course, the latter cannot be achieved for all products (bananas). Wherever possible, we try to source from regional growers. We have been working with regional farmers and vegetable growers for years. What makes us special is that we can offer smaller farms in particular a secure marketing channel. This enables the farms to grow more different crops and thus promote diversity. They would not be able to sell these smaller quantities in the wholesale market.

We currently have around 50 employees working in the office, and as drivers and in packing. Sustainability is also important to us when it comes to mobility. Since 2017, we have been increasingly focusing on electric mobility and now deliver almost exclusively by electric vehicle. In the Essen Rüttenscheid district, we deliver exclusively by cargo bike with our partner Roman from Frachtradler.

When did you start using free and open source software (FOSS)?

We have relied on open source from the very beginning. Among other reasons, this is of course due to cost considerations. However, it is also because, as in trade and cultivation, we are critical of the concentration of power and the associated dependence on a few providers in the software services sector.

Which apps do you use in the company?

We use Thunderbird as our email programme, Mozilla Firefox as our default browser, and LibreOffice as our office software (especially for word processing and spreadsheets). Our server runs on Linux, and we use Proxmox for virtualisation.

What have been your experiences with LibreOffice so far?

LibreOffice fully meets our requirements for office application software. There is only one compatibility issue with a public sector contractor who works with Microsoft. A formula used in their Excel spreadsheet is not supported by LibreOffice. However, the solution here should be for the public sector to become independent of proprietary software from the US.

Many thanks again to Flotte Karotte for their generous donation! We hope they continue to find LibreOffice useful for many years to come.