Battling Food Waste With Mobile Apps
The resources provided to us by nature are immense, yet finite.
It is for our benefit that nature granted us with clean air, water and a healthy ecosystem. However, we have become invaders to our own home rather than its protectors. Time and again nature is sending us alerts in the forms of famine, earthquakes & global warming etc that we are damaging our given resources by wasting the very blessings that were meant for our use. Food waste is one such issue that although not unaddressed, still never comes to a favorable conclusion. The results do not only effect the third world or the already developed nations of the world, but act as a chain reaction in the social, moral and sociopolitical decline.
The findings are alarming. According to CNBC, Americans waste more than 50 percent of the food than it was in the 1970s. Another report by the US Department of Agriculture illustrates that an average family consisting of four individuals wastes calories equivalent to $1500 a year.
Dana Gunder, at NRDC draws attention to the universal fact by saying that ‘When we waste food, we waste all of the resources it takes to bring it to our plates’.
Donating cosmetically imperfect food, which otherwise is fit for consumption is not the golden parachute or the only way out to sort this issue.
As Dan Simerman puts it in his post “Where Is The App To Solve Food Waste?” We must focus on how to utilize the food we are already producing BEFORE searching for methods that increase food production. It’s my personal belief that this is the path we must take in order to solve world hunger.(you can read it here)
What’s required is a major shift in cultural patterns we live in and the mindset that determines the collective right and wrong of consumption & usage in our society. We need a lifestyle solution. This can be made achievable by using effective tools and gadgets that provide measures convenient enough to be logistical and also educate us .
Considering the fact that we live in an era where human life is highly relying on the influence of machines, AI, apps and other gizmos, which are responsible for adding the “Accuracy” factor. A lot of effort is being done to create a solution to answer the said issue. eGrocer takes the effort up a notch by offering a lifestyle solution to this problem
What eGrocer does?
“eGrocer” is designed as a one window solution to Food Waste. If that’s not enough, the app is your personalized handheld dietitian/nutritionist + chef + fitness instructor + recipe book and your very own food manager. Founder Richard Messier quotes:
“This is the first lifestyle app which is able to make the best decisions for you. Families are strapped for time more than ever, but eGrocer gives people the ability to create and implement a meal plan quickly and within their budget. In fact, eGrocer generates a precise meal plan faster than most people order a pizza. The app will ultimately help everyone save money at the grocery and send less food to landfills.”
Features:
Cost Effective Meal Planner
The main function of the app is to provide users with an effective and smart meal plan, at the same time ensuring it is healthy and avoid wasting food, which is a cost saving.
Suggest Diet
The app makes diet and meal suggestions according to the BMR (Body Mass Ratios) and activity levels preventing the user to go through extensive shopping lists and bulgy recipe books. This ultimately saves a lot of time for the users.
Efficient and Easy to Use Pantry Manager
The app’s pantry management feature also helps in reducing food waste wherein the users can create a list of ingredients, while the app remembers their usage and updates it for them. Also telling them what items they can buy from grocery stores around them. Pantry management and optimization is taken hand in hand and presents a resourceful amount of data that can take home cooking to the next level.
Recipe & meal Solution
eGrocer is one smart move to recipes rather than being a mere collections of ideas. It suggests users recipes they can cook based upon likes, dislikes, allergies, difficulty level, preparation time and factors like calories, nutrition, & ingredient counts.
This doesn’t end here….
Users can interact with comments and reviews on a recipe and assist other users to communicate new things that they can do.
And eGrocer is all set to add more features. Future iterations will include a food ordering system that will sync with local producers and users so that on the basis of regulated data exchange, we can trim over production of food that results in losses. This will also pave the way for farm-fresh food consumption by effective order and delivery mechanism.
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