KoRo = food, right?
Actually-no! Or not from the beginning, anyway. The name of our company hides a clue: we were originally called KoRo Drogerie, and when founders Kosta and Robert started the project in 2012, the idea was to sell detergents and household cleaners, in maxi-format. Then having the epiphany in 2014 was Michelle, Kosta's wife: keep the maxi-formats, but turn to dried and dried fruits.
No Piran, no KoRo
Our Piran produce wizard began his career at KoRo as a working student in accounting. Later, when co-founder Robert decided to leave the company, the opportunity arose to become CEO. A student? CEO! But Piran has always had unusual ideas, such as when he sold his Yu-Gi-Oh! card collection in order to buy the shares needed to become part of the company's management. Since then, Piran has become KoRo's product wizard, and he has never abandoned his unusual methods: in 2016 he was in the spotlight at Pokémon Go to promote KoRo's logo, and he recently won the German cooking show The Perfect Dinner.
KoRo goes international
Given the success of our products in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, we wanted to try to win the hearts of other countries. So, in 2017 we opened a shop in France and the United Kingdom, in 2019 came the time for the Netherlands, and in 2020 Italy. To date, we deliver delicacies to as many as 17 European countries.
From zero to a hundred
In the beginning, our range had only 15 products, but by 2020 we had added another 807 delicacies! This means a growth of 5737.33%! And along with the range, our team has also expanded: from the initial trio, after six years we had grown to 100 people, and today we are almost 300 (and still growing)!
We also tried our hand at fresh fruit
By now it's clear that experimenting with new things is kind of our motto: so it's no surprise that in 2021 we tried adding fresh fruit to our product range. It all started with jackfruit, which we already sold in the form of chips. KoRo customers would then be able to order about 6 kilograms of jackfruit, but that did not last long: in fact, unfortunately the fruit did not arrive as fresh as we would have liked. We tried in short, but it was also a signal for us to stick to what we knew how to do well, namely "dry" and long-life products.
Chunks by KoRo - Our ice cream bar.
If Mozart Dough, Death By Chocolate and Peanut Pretzel Munchies mean anything to you, then you are right at the point of no return at KoRo! In fact, these are some of the delicious ice cream flavors we came up with for our Chunks by KoRo brand! This time, the idea came not from Piran, but from Hannah, an ice cream influencer (yes we know, it's basically the dream job). Hannah also possessed the knowledge to turn this idea into reality, so from 2021 to 2023 KoRo ice cream came to Berlin and other cities in Germany. At the moment, the KoRo Chunks project is on hiatus, but amazing news is coming soon!
KoRo Café
You thought we had tried them all, didn't you? And instead in May 2022, we opened our first KoRo Café in Berlin, just minutes away from the world-famous Alexanderplatz. The idea was to offer our fantastic products, ready-to-eat: from sandwiches with goat cheese (or tofu) and pears, to the ever-present porridge, to banana bread.
The logo fail
In 2023 something incredible happened: our cereal bars arrived aboard Deutsche Bahn trains (the equivalent of German Trenitalia)! Too bad that on the packaging of the bars, our logo was not present. And none of the twelve people involved in the project noticed, until the bars were already traveling on all the trains from one end of Germany to the other. Some may have thought it was done on purpose, a brilliant advertising campaign, but the reality is that it was simply a mistake. How could this have happened? Perhaps we were allә too focusedә on the creative process, that something as trivial as the logo was taken for granted. But at the end of the day, the bars were still recognizable, even without the logo, thanks to the packaging and styling, and they accompanied you on your travels around Germany.
Snack buddies (literally and otherwise)
Over the years, we have collaborated with various brands, and together we have created amazing new products. For example, with the popular Berlin food magazine Mit Vergnügen we have collaborated not once, but twice! First in 2022 to come up with one of our Advent calendars, then in 2023 to create our 100% plant-based version of the iconic currywurst. Also in 2023, we partnered with Germany's leading producer of meat substitutes, Rügenwalder Mühle, to produce no less than five meat and fish alternatives. Our "footprint" can be seen in the fact that unlike most alternatives on the market, these products can be stored out of the refrigerator for up to 11 months before opening! Oh yeah, vegan tuna, meatballs, mince, bacon and fillets - all in the pantry and 100% plant-based.
Finally, a huge THANK YOU for walking with us through our story! We promise the next 10 years will be at least as crazy as these just past!