An increasing number of global retailers and start-ups are using apps to alert consumers to near-expiring food and their drastic price drops in an attempt to reduce food waste.
The most popular food waste app, Copenhagen-based Too Good To Go claims to have saved over 938,244 meals in the UK by doing this. It states that a third of all food produced is wasted.
The average UK household throws away £355.68 worth of food every year, equating to a £9.7bn across the country annually, according to savings site VoucherCodes.
The first Northern Ireland-based app to fight food waste was launched earlier this year. The mobile platform Gander displays reduced-to-clear food from Spar, Eurospar and Vivo shops automatically, as they are stickered in store.
Activists have built online communities to share food with neighbours before throwing it away. The German government launched a phone app offering recipes by celebrity chefs made specifically for left-over groceries that often get discarded.
Many European businesses are encouraged to give their unsold food for free to charities that distribute it to the homeless or other people in need.
In Finland, grocery chain store S-market holds a "happy hour" between 9pm and midnight at its 900 nationwide locations, at which point grocery items that are scheduled to expire at midnight tumble into deep-discount mode.
The New York Times writes that although increasing numbers of consumers are trying to find ways to reduce their carbon footprint, the climate change consequences related to the world’s intractable food wastage problem is rarely given much consideration.
Yet, moderating food waste is “one of the few personal habits that can help the planet.”
Photograph (c) Too Good to Go
Sources: LinkedIn Daily Rundown (UK), Pymnts, The New York Times
