Food Ordering Apps Are Reimagining Waste From Fancy Restaurants As Cheap Meals

Wasted food is not only a sad sight to see, but it also drastically impacts the environment. Now, tech startups across Asia are combating waste by converting food that would otherwise end up in landfills into low-cost meals. 

In Singapore, one app called treatsure allows people to purchase a “buffet-in-a-box” from restaurants for a discounted price. It has partnered with Hyatt, Marriott, and Accor Group hotels in the city-state, all of which have agreed to turn leftovers into lunchbox, bento-style meals instead of throwing them away.

Launched in 2017, treatsure has amassed 30,000 users who would usually wait until the end of the day to collect their food. While that may seem a bit inconvenient, the system seems to be working as, according to Bloomberg, it has saved 30 metric tons of food from going to waste. 

A similar program was set up in Hong Kong by French company Phenix, which brought an app called OnTheLine to the territory. However, instead of meal sets, citizens can opt for a ‘Mystery Basket’ from stores such as Pret a Manger and The Cakery, which offer a minimum discount of 50% on its items through the app, the news outlet continues.

In total, 25,000 baskets have been sold, with each basket amounting to 2.2 pounds of food saved and almost 10 pounds of CO2 emissions saved. 

In Japan, an app called Tabete is also rescuing uneaten food from 2,140 restaurants that it has partnered with and providing it to its 525,000 customers. 

While food may look like it doesn’t have any obvious side effects on the environment, each year, a third of food globally is wasted. This in turn causes almost 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, according to the United Nations. Asia-Pacific, in particular, is responsible for about half of the discarded food.

According to Taichi Isaku, co-founder of CoCooking, the company that created Tabete, introducing technology such as this and cultivating a new way of thinking about leftovers is having a slow uptake in Asia due to the diverse cultures in the region. Careful education and promotion have to be done in order to get people to understand the purpose of these apps. 

As such, Tabete and treatsure are doing their best to educate their respective nations by curating different programs on their social media accounts that teach people the importance of saving food from landfills. 

[via Bloomberg, cover image via Dariia/Adobe Stock]