5 minutes with Sara Serantes, CEO and Founder of Freshperts

This time it is Sara Serantes, CEO and Founder of Freshperts, an app for the home delivery of fresh, quality and instant-made dishes with a “freshly-made” philosophy. She’ll be talking to us about this increasingly important day for women around the world. This year, #chooseToChallenge is the topic chosen to represent and encompass women’s struggle for equality.

Women’s Day, the #choosetochallenge day

Sara is clear about what International Women’s Day means to her. “It is a day of union, of sisterhood, of empathy and, of course, also of vindication. It is a joint action that strengthens our convictions and becomes a megaphone for reporting injustice,” she says.

As a female entrepreneur, she knows what it means to challenge the rules as a woman and could not agree more with the topic chosen for this year, #choosetochallenge: "Now is the ideal time for bringing in new initiatives that focus on the challenges we face and help to change this perspective more quickly."

"For there to be a change, it is absolutely necessary to give a voice to those women who have dared and have fought to push forward ideas and projects, and to make all the obstacles, insecurities and uncertainties they have encountered along the way simply because they are women better known, to find out how they have overcome them and to learn from each and every one of them, not only to empathize, but to get rid of those extra difficulties that otherwise they wouldn’t have had to overcome."

Equality, a pending issue

Equality between men and women in the world of work is still a pending issue in Spanish society. Catering companies and the increasingly booming world of home delivery are no exception to this. Many women all over the world have to fight for equality, as it has not yet been established in society. The situation is even worse in less developed countries.

Sara is no exception either, and has had to face up to the challenge of equality since she started her first catering business almost 10 years ago: “I have had to deal with many outdated concepts that no longer reflect today’s world. When I founded Sushifresh, the word ‘entrepreneur’ was automatically linked to the image of a middle-aged man in a suit. I was 26 years old at the time and clearly did not fit any of those definitions. No matter how solidly my project was pitched, I just wasn’t being taken seriously.”  An outdated image that did not make it any easier to find funding for her first company: “I came up against numerous obstacles in the search for funding and although I went to institutions, banks, microcredits for entrepreneurs and filled in dozens of forms, the answer was always the same - you aren’t in your right mind if you think you can sell fish online.”

Luckily, ENISA, the national technological innovation company, backed her: “I started Sushifresh with the intention of proving them wrong. My first team was made up of a sushi chef, two delivery drivers and myself. I decided to invest in technology and create a company focused on cuisine that would rely on quality raw materials in the digital channel. 10 years later, I am proud to have made the most of my first opportunity and all the ones that came after, to have left behind what held me back, those archaic concepts, to prove that solid business plans outweigh any kind of generality”.

The future of women in innovative industries

Sara believes that in order to improve the inclusion of women in the technology sector, we need to give them the opportunities they deserve, listen to their ideas and give them the chance to carry them out: “We need to forget the stereotypes that are attached to certain figures and simply pay attention to solid projects for what they are. There is no room for prejudice in ideas (or outside them).”

Among innovative industries, delivery is one of the fastest growing, and just as in other industries, it is not easy to find women in senior positions in home delivery companies. However, as Sara points out, it is only a matter of time before the balance evens out: “Women are gaining presence in all sectors and markets, but we have to continue to persevere in order to boost this growth and move from being a representation to enjoying real diversity. Especially in markets where we are less present. The restaurant industry is a sector of change, and all change brings in new trends, new concepts and cuisines to the sector, so why not different ways of understanding the market too?”

Women entrepreneurs, a long road ahead

Inequality is evident in jobs, in salaries and in senior positions in many companies. Fortunately, more and more women are leaving the corporate world behind and taking up entrepreneurship, proving their worth and achieving what they have not been able to achieve in companies, in part because of inequality. Many of them have become a true inspiration for women who want to become entrepreneurs: “From the way I have experienced my entrepreneurship, there is no woman who does not inspire me, whether it be for her ideas, for the way she carries them out or thanks to her confidence and perseverance! Behind every story there is a woman to admire and I keep a little piece of each one of them”, adds Sara.