While a large amount of still edible food and other products, such as cleaning and care products, are withdrawn from the regular supply chain in industry and trade for a variety of reasons, such as damage to packaging, overproduction or incorrect labelling, there are many people in Austria who cannot afford to buy these products. The social supermarkets of “SOMA Austria & Partner” collect surplus goods from industrial and commercial enterprises and sell these products for a symbolic price to people with a proven low income in social supermarkets.

This creates added social value for a large number of stakeholders, especially for customers, for the (partly voluntary) employees of the social supermarkets, for cooperating trade, industrial companies and for the environment.

The Competence Center for Nonprofit Organisations and Social Entrepreneurship was commissioned by the umbrella organisation SOMA Austria & Partners to determine the social and economic benefits of social markets by means of a brief version of an SROI analysis for the year 2018.

If all effects, i.e. the total social added value, are related to the total investments of SOMA Austria & Partner, this results in an SROI value of 8.47. This means that each euro invested in the social supermarkets of SOMA Austria & Partner creates impacts in the monetised equivalent of 8.47 euros. This is a relatively high SROI value, which is due to the fact that the social markets create a positive benefit for a very large group of clients with relatively little investment. Social supermarkets provide these goods that are a burden for enterprises to those people for whom they bring relief. Although the range of benefits of social supermarkets for customers is wide, everyone benefits from this relief. While some are happy to be able to afford more in other areas due to savings in the social supermarket, other customers are psychologically relieved in existential concerns.

In summary, the social supermarkets of SOMA Austria & Partners have a very high impact. The monetized social impacts, related to the year 2018, were more than 8 times as high as the financial investments made.

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