Tech that’s saving your leftovers

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Hi everyone,

Let’s talk about food waste. Globally, we waste about one-third of all food produced. That’s enough to feed billions of people, which is hard to face given that over two billion people currently experience food insecurity.

That waste also carries a substantial environmental cost in the form of wasted energy, water, packaging and carbon emissions.

But like so many sustainability challenges, food waste is being tackled with some clever technology. And while the issue is big, the solutions are often small, smart, and simple ones that we can quickly adopt into everyday life.

Here are a few that stood out to me this week:

Smarter home kitchens

A logical place to start when it comes to food-saving technology is right where we spend time every day, our kitchens at home.

New models of smart fridges are starting to track expiry dates, suggest recipes based on what you’ve got in the fridge, or even send you reminders to use up that bag of salad hidden at the back of a shelf!

This is great in isolation, but the appliances themselves come with an environmental cost so for those with perfectly working older appliances, apps like NoWaste and Kitche help you log what you’ve bought and send handy reminders to use it up.

The technology behind this is fairly straightforward, but the habits it builds can significantly cut down on household food waste.

Saving food on the go

Food waste doesn’t just happen at home, it also happens in huge quantities across supermarkets, restaurants, bakeries and cafes around the world. That’s where food rescue apps come in.

Platforms like Too Good To Go and Karma help businesses sell surplus food at a discount, offering consumers last-minute deals on items that would otherwise be thrown out. Others like Olio apply this approach locally, connecting neighbours to share unwanted food and groceries.

These tools are a win all around, as restaurants make money on food they’d otherwise be throwing out, consumers get great deals and less food is wasted!

Upcycling food waste

What if we didn’t view food waste as waste, but as a raw material?

That’s what a growing number of start-ups are doing, by taking leftover ingredients and upcycling them into entirely new products. Toast Brewing takes surplus bread and transforms it into beer, and companies like ReGrained create snacks from spent grain used in brewing. There are even brands taking fruit pulp and turning it into energy bars or jams.

Upcycled food is predicted to become a $100 billion industry by 2030 and it’s a perfect example of the sort of creative thinking we need to see.

AI-driven supply chains

Some of the most avoidable food waste happens long before food reaches our homes or restaurants, and that happens in supermarkets.

AI-powered forecasting tools are helping retailers and wholesalers manage their inventory better and reduce this issue by predicting demand more accurately, improving ordering, and cutting down on overstocking. Supermarkets can now adjust pricing dynamically as food nears its expiry, and some systems even track temperature along the supply chain to spot spoilage risks early.

If supermarkets can accurately predict what stock they need and when it helps to cut down on waste from the top of the supply chain.

Better packaging

Sometimes, reducing waste is as simple as giving food a little more time.

Innovations in packaging are helping extend shelf life and reduce unnecessary disposal. Some companies are developing labels that change colour as food spoils, while others are working on invisible protective coatings made from plant-based materials that slow ripening and microbial growth, without the need for additional plastic.

A longer shelf life means fewer items going off in people’s fridges as there is less pressure on consumers to eat everything they buy immediately.

Composting made easy

Some food waste is inevitable, that’s never going to change. But what happens after we bin it matters.

New composting systems are making it easier than ever to deal with scraps more sustainably. From smart countertop composters like Lomi that use heat and grinding to break down waste overnight, to large scale data-driven industrial composting systems used by hotels and commercial kitchens, tech is helping transform waste into nutrient-rich soil instead of emission-heavy landfill.

For households, businesses and the environment, that’s another big win against food waste.

Food waste will never go away, not completely. But with the right tools, we can dramatically reduce it and bring down food-related emissions with it.

What I like most is that the solutions offered by technology aren’t majorly disruptive, they work with how we already live, nudging us to make better use of what we have.

To me, that’s progress worth making.

Catch you next week,
James

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