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The Best Food Waste Apps To Make Eco-Friendly Living Easy
Eliminate food waste from your life 🌎
In our busy lives it's all too easy to forget about that bag of salad, half a loaf of bread or lovingly prepared Tupperware meal at the back of the fridge.
It's safe to say that wasting food on any level does not feel good, and it's not good for the planet or our bank accounts either. Around 70% of the UK's food waste is caused by household waste alone (we're looking at you, pint of unused milk in the fridge door) according to WRAP, and it costs the average UK family £700 a year!
But all is not lost. There are loads of ways you can reduce your food waste at home, whether it's learning what you can and can't freeze or how to store food properly, or downloading one of these handy food waste apps. So, keep reading for our selection of the very best food waste apps to help protect our planet and discover some fun new restaurants, recipes and ways of organising our lives (and fridges) along the way.
Too Good To Go
If you're a bargain hunter, this one's for you. On Too Good To Go you can pick up discounted "Surprise Bags" from your favourite restaurant, cafe or supermarket for less than half the price the items would normally be.
Places like Costa, Pret, Yo Sushi!, Aldi and even Greggs are on the app, and although you don't know what you'll be getting in your Surprise Bag until you arrive in your allotted time slot, we bet it'll be delicious. Plus, you're saving that food from going to waste!
Karma
If the idea of a surprise bag doesn't appeal to you, you can pick up specific items for half the price they usually are on Karma. While the range isn't quite as good as Too Good To Go, you can eliminate the risk of getting something you don't like by getting a poke bowl, sandwich or cinnamon bun of your choosing.
All you have to do is order your dish on the app and head down to the restaurant, cafe or shop to pick it up.
Olio
Trust us, Olio is about to restore your faith in community spirit. You can pick up anything from a few loaves of leftover bread to furniture and electrical items from your neighbours, all for free!
You can even become an Olio volunteer and pick up leftover food from local supermarkets and upload it to the app for your neighbours to collect.
NoWaste
Calling all organisational wizards! No Waste is an absolute godsend when it comes to keeping track of what's in your fridge.
With NoWaste you can create lists for your fridge, freezer and cupboards and use them to plan your meals, create shopping lists and ultimately save a whole lot of food waste.
You can keep track of all your expiration dates and even see what impact your new super-organised life has on your carbon footprint.
nosh
Another app that'll truly transform the way you organise your kitchen is nosh. This AI-based app was developed during the pandemic and allows you to track the expiry date of all the products in your home.
The weekly analytic feature is brilliant for finding out your most commonly-wasted items and buying habits, and the design is super easy to navigate which gets a thumbs up from us.
Kitche
Similar to nosh and NoWaste, Kitche is here to help sort out fridges, freezers and pantries stuffed to the rim with out of date food.
You can scan your supermarket receipt on the app, receive notifications when your food is about to go off, create shopping lists and track which foods you commonly throw away.
There's also a section where you can track your impact on the planet, set your own mission statement and goals and earn digital rewards all while tracking how much CO2 and money you're saving!
Once you've got yourself organised, Kitche also has over 1000 recipe suggestions created by their in-house Jamie Oliver approved chef for your leftovers!
giki
Trying to shop more sustainably but not sure what to buy? That's where giki comes in. This app centres around 13 'badges' with eco-friendly credentials that are awarded to products that meet their plant-saving standards.
Use the app to scan the barcodes of products in shops to see if they've been awarded badges for recyclable packaging or ethical sourcing.
FoodCloud
This one's slightly different, as it connects supermarkets with charities and community groups, rather than individuals, to donate their leftover food.
Supermarkets can upload a description of what they have available, and then certain linked charities will get a notification that the food can be collected. So, if you're a member of a community group or you're looking for surplus food for your charity, FoodCloud is a great choice.
Louella is our food and drink writer, covering everything from how to host the perfect pasta party to the latest research on fermented foods and gut health. She's worked in almost every part of the food and hospitality industry, from serving plates and pouring wine to recipe developing and cooking behind the scenes to create beautifully photographed food for magazines. Outside of the office, you can usually find Louella performing very badly in pub quizzes or shaking up a margarita or two.
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