Love food, hate waste? There’s an app for that!

With over a third of all food made worldwide going to waste (US$1 trillion per year of it) and 800,000 people going hungry every day, it’s no wonder we have some very angry and very determined entrepreneurs out there setting out to tackle this huge problem.

The redistribution of food seems an obvious solution and in a Robin Hood-esque spirit, has been brought into the 21st century with a fast growing range of food waste distribution apps. Here are three from around the globe we hope you’ll be hearing about and using soon…

Too Good To Go works across the UK, Europe and the US and has prevented 805,000 meals (and counting) being thrown out by restaurants since their start in 2015. The restaurants and eateries signed up to advertise unsold dishes towards the end of each day, which can be snapped up by lucky app-customers at a discounted rate and be collected minutes later. Bagging restaurant quality food on the cheap is like striking gold; saving 1500 tons of CO2 emissions whilst doing so and you’re a real winner ~ toogoodtogo.co.uk  or click here to select a different country.

Olio is a local area-based app which connects neighbour to neighbour, as well as shops and cafes, so that excess food is shared- and most items come for free. Olio founders Tessa Cook & Saasha Celestial found that 50% of all food waste is actually from homes (only 2% is from retail) and so Olio targets household food re-distribution. Browsing your local area on Olio, you can find anything from an unused pack of tea bags to gourmet restaurant salads and dining room chairs. Connect with other users and build relationships with users, joining the network which has prevented 85,500 meals from going to waste since 2015 ~ olioex.com

No Food Waste, India, serves 500 hungry and homeless people every day in each city it operates in- including Erode, Delhi and Coimbatore. It’s a food recovery project which takes surplus food from events such as weddings and parties and redistributes it by mini vans; just call the hotline if you have enough to feed a small group or more and they’ll be there. You can also ‘share your birthday’ by donating meals instead of a gift list for your party; a cute way to support this business which has fed 268,000 people and saved 88,440 kg of food so far ~
nofoodwaste.in

So whether you’re looking for some bargain restaurant food, an innovative birthday gift idea or simply, you know, want to save the planet and feed the hungry, get on to the app store now.