One third of food globally goes to waste. That’s around 1.3 billion tons of food
It is estimated that if food waste were a country, it would be the third highest emitter of Green House Gas emissions. (Just behind China and the United States)
Just the resources alone needed to produce the food that becomes lost or wasted has a carbon footprint of about 3.3 billion tons of Carbon Dioxide!
At a more local scale Qatar is among the top food wasters in the GCC region and the world.
It is estimated that half the waste sitting in Qatar’s landfills is made up of food waste.
Qatar produces more than 2.5 million metric tons of municipal waste of which 50% is estimated to be food waste. That equates to just under 1.5kg of food waste per person per day!
One report quotes it as actually being 1.8kg of waste per person per day. That’s nearly 4 times the amount of food waste per person compared to the US!
A lot of this waste happens at the restaurant and food retail level of the food chain
Every day, delicious, fresh food goes to waste at cafes, restaurants, hotels and supermarkets - just because it hasn’t sold in time.
We don’t know what the stats are in Qatar but in the US
Up to an estimated 30% of food in supermarkets is thrown away.
Up to an estimated 10% of food purchased by restaurants never reaches the customer.
The Solution:
The Still Good app lets consumers buy and collect this food that would be wasted (at a heavily discounted rate within a time frame before it gets thrown out) so it gets eaten instead of wasted.
A platform where customers can connect to food retailers with excess food
Example(s):
Supermarkets have fresh vegetables and fruit, baked goods, a food to go section (and more) that needs to be sold before the end of the day. They always plan for a daily surplus, so they don’t run out but always have food left at the end of the day that they throw out and ends up going to landfill.
Restaurants and café’s always have left over food too.
Towards the end of the day supermarkets or restaurants can put on the app a “mystery bag” which will contain approx. QAR100 of food for QAR33 which would be a typical combo from their outlet.
A supermarket might look like baked goods, fruit and veg, pre-packed sandwiches etc that would otherwise be getting thrown out at the end of the day.
A Lebanese restaurant might look like a selection of shawarmas and pre-made starters.