App fights food waste with deep discounts
Saving money and making eco-friendly food choices don’t always go hand in hand. But as the success of Toronto startup Flashfood shows, people are eager to put a dent in food waste if it means deeply discounted groceries. Through its nationwide program with Loblaw Companies Ltd., it diverted nearly five million pounds of food from landfills and shaved more than $10 million off of grocery bills in 2019 alone.
“We have over a million downloads. We’ve fed over 110,000 families across Canada. People are reacting really positively to this,” says Josh Domingues, founder and CEO of Flashfood. “We’ve given the consumer the ability to dictate their purchasing patterns and how that’s going to impact the environment. It’s been really meaningful.”
Via the app, you can buy items approaching their best-before dates from nearby grocery stores for up to 50 per cent off. You can then pick up your order from a designated Flashfood area, which is subject to the same safety precautions and procedures as the rest of the grocery store.
Fresh food — especially meat, dairy and produce — is Flashfood’s specialty. Generally among the most expensive items on a grocery bill, they’re difficult to sell within the last 72 hours of shelf life, says Domingues. Perishable by nature, fresh foods are not as feasible to donate to charities as their shelf-stable counterparts, and would otherwise go to waste.
“It’s one thing to be able to afford food and another for that food to provide health benefits,” says Domingues. “I’m really, really thankful we’re able to do the work that we’re doing because people need it now more than ever. People really rely on us.”
As one Flashfood advocate in St. John’s told The Telegram late last year, he recommends the app to all of his friends because of the savings and the environmental impact. “So much food gets wasted so often. It makes me really sad,” said John Kearney. “But now I’m taking that food and coming up with some recipes … and I’m eating a lot of food that otherwise would have just been tossed.”
Since it launched with 138 Maxi and Proviso stores in Quebec, Flashfood has grown to include more than 400 Loblaw stores across Canada, and has expanded into the U.S. The startup recently announced plans to partner with more Loblaw stores this year, starting with 38 Independent Grocer locations and select No Frills stores. And while nearly five million pounds of food and more than $10 million saved sounds impressive, Domingues says it’s just the beginning.
“This couldn’t happen if it wasn’t for an innovative partner who was willing to take a chance on us early like Loblaw,” he says. “We went from four stores to over 400 in the course of a year. Loblaw has around 900 stores between their (Market and Discount) brands. So those numbers, while seemingly incredible and huge, it’s just a blip on the radar for what we can accomplish on a global scale. And that’s how we’re looking at this.”