Food waste seems to be the hot-button issue du jour, which is fantastic seeing that Americans trash 33 million tons of food annually. First there was an app to pawn off your leftovers and then a new certification for restaurants that give their extra grub to those in need.
Now there’s PareUp, an app in the works that will help you buy surplus food from grocery stores and restaurants at a discount. Supermarkets and restaurants will put their excess food inventory into PareUp along with a price and time of availability. Then shoppers using PareUp can see what’s up for grabs and go pick it up.
One of the founders, Margaret Tung, emphasizes that PareUp isn’t a threat to food banks but will “pick up where they leave off.”
Tung made the case for the app to the L.A. Times:
“We want to change the cultural conversation around what it means to consume food and the life cycle of food,” said Tung. “Food ranges from really fresh to new to absolutely disgusting. But we’re only using a small window of that range, and we’re throwing out a lot more than needs to be.”
PareUp will show up in your Apple app store by fall. Cleaner than dumpster diving, right?
