Up to forty percent of the food we produce is never consumed, according to multiple sources I’ve been finding recently. By any measure, this is a tremendous waste in a world with a growing population, but even more so considering the famines caused by armed conflict and political instability.
Fortunately, wherever there is a need, someone will try to find a technological solution. One of the biggest sources of food waste is restaurants. What if more food is prepared than demand requires? For example, baked sweet potatoes cannot be saved for the next day (according to my sources). What happens to the excess? There ought to be an app for that.
Now there are many. I googled “apps preventing food waste” and got 585 results. Two that have been featured in recent news articles are Too Good To Go (https://toogoodtogo.com/en-us/) and Flashfood (https://www.flashfood.com/). The basic idea is to provide restaurants, grocery stores, and other food outlets with a way to sell surplus product at reduced prices. The buyer gets a good deal, the food outlet gets some return on what would normally be thrown out, and the app takes a percentage.
But why not donate the surplus to a food bank? These apps are designed for selling small portions, like individual meals, of perishables, while food banks normally deal with large quantities of items that can be kept for longer periods. So these apps are really filling a need.
So if you are concerned about food waste and could use a break for your food budget, see if any of these apps can help you out.
Other helpful sources —
“New Apps Prevent Food Waste While Saving People Money” by Bradley Blackburn, (https://www.wlns.com/news/local-news/new-apps-prevent-food-waste-while-saving-people-money/)
“Smart Apps Prevent Food Waste and Fight Hunger” (https://iphonephon.blogspot.com/2021/11/smart-apps-prevent-food-waste-and-fight.html)
“14 Apps Preventing Food Waste” (https://foodtank.com/news/2018/09/apps-preventing-food-waste/)