Londoners can now buy restaurants’s surplus ingredients with new food waste app
Following Karma’s “successful” launch in Sweden, founder Elsa Bernadotte is continuing her mission “to help reduce food waste” by giving Londoners the chance to pick up food that would otherwise go to waste at 50% discount.
- Restaurants, cafes and grocery stores upload their surplus food to the Karma app
- Customers place and pay for their orders through the app
- They then pick up the food from the venue (as they would a take-away) within the specified time
Of the 50 London-based companies to have already signed up, restaurants include:
- Michelin-starred Aquavit
- 9 locations from French bistro Aubaine
- Magpie, new restaurant from the team behind Michelin-starred Pidgin
- Alan Yau’s (founder of Hakkasan and Wagamama) Yamabahce
- Vegetarian chain, Tibits
- Plant-based Essence Cuisine
- Bengali restaurant, Calcutta Street
- Six Hummus Bros locations
- Detox Kitchen
- H&M’s new in-store restaurant, Arket
As well as hoping to reduce the 10 million+ tonnes of food wasted every year in the UK alone, the Karma app also enables stores to “generate revenue and reach new customers.”
Co-founder and chief executive, Bernadotte, said: “We are super excited to be live in London and already have these fantastic restaurants joining as our exclusive launching partners.
“The interest has been fantastic from day one and with Londoners being environmentally conscious, great foodies and highly digital in their food shopping - we think it’s a perfect match for a solution like Karma.”
Founder of Aubaine, Hani Nakkach, added: “(Aubaine) is delighted to be partnering with Karma to tackle food waste in the restaurant industry and raise awareness of these issues. Its success is its simplicity, which creates a win-win situation for everyone involved, while preserving our environment.”
Praising the company, Aquavit London chief executive, Philip Hamilton, commented: “We’re very impressed with what Karma has achieved in Sweden and are happy and proud to be part of its mission to end food waste in London!”
Using Karma data, the company also revealed that “cafes and restaurants usually sell surplus breakfast after 10am and surplus lunch after 2pm. Bakeries sell yesterday’s bread and pastries during the whole day starting from early morning; while grocery stores usually sell food items closing in on the best-before-date during the whole day.”