[oxinsnepe]

Website tells Germans where to pick free fruit

BERLIN | Mon Oct 18, 2010 6:40pm BST

BERLIN (Reuters) - Five Germans fed up with seeing fruit rotting on trees in towns have set up a website telling people where to find trees bearing free fruit and encouraging them to pick it. Katharina Frosch had the idea while canoeing in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt last summer when she noticed an abundance of ripe fruit hanging on riverside trees.

Frosch and four other fruit fanatics set up the website (www.mundraub.org), which has a map showing the exact location of fruit trees in Germany that can be picked free of charge. "We don't want fruit which doesn't belong to anyone to rot on trees any more so we're making Mundraub -- the theft of this fruit -- socially acceptable," they say on their website. Fruit pickers can add trees they discover to the site.

The group says it will try to ensure that tree owners agree to people picking, as the platform grows. The website tells pickers not to touch trees if there is any doubt over whether fruit picking is allowed. The group hopes people will rediscover the fruit on their doorstep and "disregard organic apples and cherries from abroad, at least between the months of July and November."

(Reporting by Michelle Martin, editing by Tim Pearce)