Stop & Shop has rolled out an app to help cut food waste
Millions of tons of food are discarded by retailers each year due to confusion over buy-by dates, according to ReFED, a nonprofit that aims to reduce food waste. Food waste rots in landfills and produces methane gas, which warms the earth. In response, Stop & Shop has just rolled out Flashfood, a free app that connects shoppers to food that is reaching its use-by date and would likely be thrown away. The chain benefits, as do consumers, who can purchase meats, dairy, seafood, fresh produce, baked goods, and more for about half off. Stop & Shop first launched the app in 2021 in Worcester as a pilot program. It was so successful that the chain expanded its reach to nearly 70 stores in the state and Rhode Island, with 300 planned before the end of the summer, according to Stop & Shop’s manager of external communications, Maura O’Brien. “Since 2021, 170,000 pounds of food is not going into landfills,” she says. “We’ve been diverting food onto customers’ tables who are saving money and doing their part to help the environment.” Flashfood allows buyers to sign up, pay through the app, and pick up the food at a designated spot in the store. In a recent search, Nature’s Promise Organic Ground Grass-fed Beef can be purchased for $3.74 instead of $7.49 at a Foxborough store; pineapples are available for $2 instead of $4 in Attleboro; and at the Stop & Shop on Blue Hill Ave. in Boston, a bag of Eight O’ Clock medium roast coffee costs $4.77 rather than $8.20. Flashfood, a Toronto-based company that has grocery partners around Canada and the United States, was founded in 2016 by CEO Josh Domingues. “Everyday shoppers write in to tell us how Flashfood has changed their lives: how their kids are eating more fruit, that they can finally afford fish, or that they scored a special cut of meat for a celebration,” said Domingues, via e-mail. “Our partnership with Stop & Shop has already had such a massive impact on food affordability for families, not to mention the environment.” flashfood.com.