12 Apps Preventing Household Food Waste and Protecting the Planet – Food Tank

According to the Food Waste Index Report 2021 of the UN Environment Program, around 931 million tons of food end up in the trash. That’s enough to fill 23 million 40-ton trucks “bumper to bumper, enough to circle the earth seven times,” says Richard Swannell, international director of the Waste & Resources Action Program (WRAP). Of the 931 million tons of food waste, 61 percent – which corresponds to 569 million tons – comes from households.

“The ability to reduce food waste … has a huge impact on climate emissions,” Dana Gunders, Executive Director of ReFED, told Food Tank.

If food waste were a country, it would be the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions on the planet. And Project Drawdown, a nonprofit committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, ranks reducing food waste as the number one solution that can help curb climate emissions.

Gunders told Food Tank that reducing and avoiding food waste in households is a “very solvable, actionable problem” and hopes that people can “really see how small changes in our lives add up”.

Fortunately, dozens and dozen of mobile apps and websites around the world allow users to track their grocery purchases and reuse ingredients. These tools can help consumers avoid waste and protect the environment by saving additional money. In honor of International Food Loss and Waste Awareness Day, Food Tank highlights 12 global resources that provide simple, creative, and delicious solutions to reducing food waste in the home.

1. CozZo, Bulgaria

The software developer Ivo Dimitrov, based in Sofia, Bulgaria, first published the CozZo app in 2017 as a holistic kitchen management system. The app aims to tackle food waste by allowing users to create shopping lists, manage fridge and stock levels, track expiration dates, plan meals, and discover recipes with ingredients found at home. CozZo has expanded its reach beyond Bulgaria and now has users in North America, Europe, Southeast Asia and Australia. According to Dimitrov, the app enabled users to reduce their food waste by 50 to 70 percent within the first one to three months.

2. EroeGo, United Arab Emirates

In 2021 Daniel Solomon and John Werner launched the United Arab Emirates’ first app to tackle food waste and climate change. EroeGo provides an online food platform that gives users access to fresh groceries that expire and are offered at discounted prices. The app also offers a delivery service based on a commission structure, which should benefit the delivery drivers. EroeGo aligns its mission with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 2030 to eradicate hunger and provide basic nutritional education and access to fresh food.

3. Kitche, United Kingdom

Founded in 2018 under the motto Kitche it, don’t ditch it, the London start-up has developed an app that helps users save money and reduce food waste from the comfort of their own home. Using the free app, users first scan products from their purchase receipts and upload them. Kitche then categorizes the items, provides reminders to make sure food isn’t wasted, and allows users to filter thousands of recipes based on ingredients they already have at home. The app was recently named the best zero-waste brand in Marie Claire’s sustainability awards.

4. Love Food Hate Waste, United Kingdom

The Waste and Resources Action Program (WRAP), a UK registered non-profit organization, launched Love Food Hate Waste in 2010. This initiative aims to help consumers reduce food waste in homes, save money and protect the environment by reducing energy, water and harmful gases. On the app and website, users can find easy recipes that they can prepare using the ingredients they have on hand. It also helps users calculate servings, plan meals, create shopping lists, keep track of kitchen inventory, and regulate refrigerator temperatures to keep food fresher longer. In 2020, WRAP reported that Love Food Hate Waste had reached 31 percent of the people in the UK, up from around 15 percent in 2018.

5. Magic refrigerator, France

Since 2015, Magic Fridge or Frigo Magic, with their archive of anti-waste recipes with a French culinary flair, have been campaigning to combat food waste in the household. The free app allows users to browse 4,800 simple, healthy recipes made from leftover ingredients. It also provides a platform for users to upload and share photos of their dishes. Magic Fridge has inspired more than 2 million people around the world to find creative ways to recycle and reuse food in their homes.

6. MyFoodways, Switzerland

The MyFoodways app was developed by Foodways Consulting, a Swiss company based in Bern, and offers users healthy, environmentally friendly and flexible recipes based on the items they have on hand. MyFoodways takes users’ nutritional preferences into account and suggests ways they can switch to more sustainable eating habits while also allowing them to customize recipes with products in their kitchen. Since the app was launched in 2018, users have cooked over 5,000 recipes. According to a study by the University of Applied Sciences Northern Switzerland (FHNW), active users showed a growing interest in sustainable eating practices, including less food waste and seasonal nutrition.

7. nosh, United Kingdom

Co-founders Somdip Dey, Suman Saha and Anupam Ghosal created nosh, an app that uses in-house artificial intelligence technology to track expiration dates and monitor users’ shopping habits. The app allows users to scan barcodes to keep track of items in stock and offers recipe suggestions based on the expiration date of those items. To further reduce food waste, the app’s algorithm informs users of their buying and wasting habits and helps them make more informed decisions in the supermarket. In 2020 nosh won the award for the best mobile app design.

8. NoWaste, Denmark

As a student, Kasper Hjortsballe founded NoWaste in 2017 with the mission to reduce food waste and save money. The app provides tools for organizing food and expiration dates, such as inventory lists and options for sorting food by expiration date, name or category. NoWaste also offers options to sync and share lists with family and friends so users can learn from their community’s efforts to reduce food waste. In 2021 alone, NoWaste tracked over 700,000 groceries in private households.

9. Olio, United Kingdom

In 2015, co-founders Saasha Celestial-One and Tessa Clarke discovered that every third person experiences physical pain when throwing away good food. This inspired her to start Olio, a free food sharing app. Once launched, it quickly turned into a global marketplace that stores thousands of groceries every week. In cities around the world, users are connecting with neighbors and local businesses to share excess groceries. Users upload a photo and description of the item they want to share and arrange pickup via private message. Olio reports that it has helped eaters share over 27 million servings of food.

10. Seva Kitchen, India

Nagpur-based philanthropist Khushroo Poacha founded Seva Kitchen, a crowd-sourced food distribution app that connects dispensers of fresh, safe, homemade meals with recipients in real time. The app aims to combat the huge amount of food wasted at parties, festivals and large gatherings, and connects donors with people and organizations in need of food nearby. Seva Kitchen also launched the Neki Ka Pitara or Fridge of Kindness initiative which aims to provide fresh food to people in schools and hospitals across India. With 20 fridges in cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad, Nagpur and New Delhi, donors can take turns providing fruit, milk, eggs and packaged food. On average, the Seva Kitchen app enables 23 stock surpluses per month across India.

11. Yo No Desperdicio, Spain

The NGO for human rights and food justice Enraíza Derechos, which was started in 2015 as a website and the following year as an app, founded Yo No Desperdicio to avoid food waste in Spain. Users post an ad for the raw or cooked food they want to share, then arrange the pickup via private message. The online platform also allows users to share recipes and tips to further reduce food waste. Yo No Desperdicio is currently researching food waste and citizens’ commitment to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Madrid’s Arganzuela, Centro and Tetuán districts.

12. YoRipe, Singapore

Fang Xinyan founded YoRipe as Asia’s first social mobile app for food management and household waste prevention. The online platform not only suggests recipes to consumers based on their dietary preferences, cooking skills and available ingredients, but also allows users to scan receipts, create inventory lists and track groceries to avoid waste. Across Southeast Asia, YoRipe aims to inspire people to avoid food waste through social connections. The platform offers users the opportunity to take part in cooking challenges, publish recipes and share creations with a community of more than 50,000 amateur chefs.

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source https://www.bisayanews.com/2021/09/28/12-apps-preventing-household-food-waste-and-protecting-the-planet-food-tank/