About 2.5 million tons of food is wasted in Israel annually. While only half is considered rescuable, its value sits at about $2 billion dollars. With a clear gap in the market and a socio-economic need for change, a pair of cousins Elie Fischer and Laetitia Jessner were inspired to launch SpareEat. The Israeli developed app connects hungry customers with cafes, restaurants, supermarkets and hotels who have large quantities of leftover food with the aim to sell it at heavily discounted prices. The app charges the business to be listed, and receives a percentage of every sale. The business sells food it otherwise wouldn’t have sold, and saves on waste.
The SpareEat app is being tested in Tel Aviv, and is currently signed on with 16 facilities, with hopes of going global. Food waste is a large global issue, and many countries are taking action to create more sustainable and effective solutions. France recently became the first country to ban supermarkets from wasting food, requiring donation to the needy.
Within Israel, food donation just got easier for businesses to share their leftovers, thanks to a new law, which releases business establishments from liability for illness. Leket Israel, a long-time nonprofit player led an advocacy campaign, helped ensure that donors can no longer be harshly penalized, opening a channel for more food donations to occur.
Along with a rising awareness on food waste, another mindful food company is working to take the world by storm. Vegan Nation just raised $10 million dollars, aiming to broaden the world’s beliefs of veganism. The Vegan Nation app is an online community for vegans, with 15,000 users and 3,000 vegan businesses signed up to use VeganCoin, the app’s own currency on blockchain. The purpose of the coin is to “become the official currency of the vegan community, allowing a direct trade between consumers leading a vegan lifestyle and providers of cruelty-free commodities and services.” Their goal is to strengthen veganism and show that it is a strong financial power, perhaps the right place to focus to get the right attention.
With an uptick in food waste consciousness and animal welfare, and as Tel Aviv is the vegan capital of the world, the food revolution is on the rise. It begins with awareness, belief and a shared mindset – to leverage the current system to create a more sustainable, balanced food chain.
