We have all used, or at least heard of, apps such us Uber, Blablacar or Couchsurfing and AirBnB. The first two deal with car-sharing and the last two with apartment-sharing. They have become widely used in many countries and are successfully taking over their respective markets. Could you imagine a similar situation but with regard to food-sharing? Well now you can, enter the Leftover Swap app!
Did you know, that roughly one third of the food produced in the world every year gets wasted – that is approximately 1,3 billion tonnes of food! Actually, according to statistics, it would be possible to feed around 870 million hungry people in the world if only one-fourth of this wasted food could be saved. But still, in developed countries such as the US, there is more food produced that could ever be consumed by its citizens. People buy much more than they need, which in consequence increases the food wastage every year.
The idea behind the new app that is being developed in the US – Leftover Swap, is to allow people to share the surplus of their food with people who are willing to accept it. In other words, suppose you have made too much pasta and you will not be able to eat all of it before it gets bad; now you can register within the app as a micro volunteer, post a picture of that meal with a description and then wait for someone who might be interested in picking it up! Easy as that.
Due to legal regulations, which are still being studied by the creators of the app, the only way you can share your food is as a donation, you cannot sell it. Therefore the reasons behind its development are purely environmental and will not bring any profit to the creators – they claim that helping challenge the issue of food waste as well as enabling people to interact within their community is enough for them.
Some people might doubt the positive reception of such an app, since it might be hard to trust a stranger with food they are sharing, but Newman, one of the creators of the app, quickly comes with a response to that: “People seem to have a huge lack of trust in their fellow man, thinking that leftovers would be diseased somehow. It goes back to the couch-surfing thing. You’re staying at a random person’s place and you have to trust they aren’t going to do something weird. It’s the same with leftovers.”
This all leads to a conclusion about the increasingly popular notion of sharing economy, supported by many apps on our smartphones, which basically explains how important it is for people to be able to save up money with easy peer-to-peer exchange of goods and services as well as opinions and experiences – and to be a part of a community.
What do you make of the whole notion of sharing economy? Do you think Leftover Swap will be as successful as for example Couchsurfing?
References:
http://helpfromhome.org/leftover-swap-passing-on-leftover-food
http://www.fao.org/save-food/resources/keyfindings/en/
Dear Joanna, this seems like a topic in which more people should become interested. Hearing that in developed countries more food is produced than that could ever be consumed, makes me feel somewhat sad. Especially since so many people do not have anything to eat on a daily basis!
To help reduce the waste economy, I also am aware of an application which I really like, it is called Restoranto. This app is only available in Rotterdam and soon in Delft. It was developed by Christian Spaargaren and Ralph de Groot, and instead of individuals sharing their food for free, this app makes it possible for restaurants to offer their leftover meals for a discount. After one month, there were 55 restaurants who posted meals, which ‘saved’ 200 meals, which otherwise would have been thrown away. Furthermore, for every meal that is bought on the app, one meal is donated to Uganda.
I think we should all become more careful about our purchases and make sure that food waste will decrease significantly!
Hi Joanna! You wrote an interesting blog post. I like how you approach the sharing economy from a different perspective by introducing the Leftover Swap application.
To start off with your first question, I think the sharing economy is a great innovation and should keep growing. People all over the world are getting connected and are helping each other. However, the most important driver to join a platform which can be regarded as belonging to the sharing economy is to help yourself. For instance, for most people the reason they offer their place for rent on Airbnb is to earn some extra money. And money is probably also the most important incentive for Uber drivers. Although there are people who might enjoy the company of other people, the so-called sharing economy is driven by financial motivations.
That’s why I’m convinced that the Leftover Swap application you are describing, is targeting a different segment. What benefits does someone gain from sharing a leftover meal? At first, it takes time to take a picture and upload the available meal. Second, the cook has to get in touch with the receiver of the meal. Like you mentioned, the receiver should be able to pick up his or her meal. This includes sharing private information like a home address. The cook has to stay home and wait for the receiver to come pick up their meal. All in all, it takes extra effort and time which does not sound very attractive. Besides, the receiver might need to travel in order to reach the pickup location and needs a smartphone with the application to even get in touch people with leftovers. Therefore I’m not sure if this application will be as successful as for example CouchSurfing and I’m convinced this will not efficiently reduce food waste.
Hi Joanna,
I’ve never heard of the Leftover Swap app but the concept seems interesting.
Firstly, I think it’s important to point out the difference between apps that charge customers and the ones that don’t. The first type refers to apps such as Uber, AirBnB, etc. and the second type refers to social app such as Couchsurfing and Leftover Swap, as you have mentioned in your post. These two groups have different business models and serve different purposes. In terms of popularity, for-profit apps benefit both the buyer and the seller, and often this makes them so popular. Leftover Swap puts burden on people offering food (they need to buy groceries, prepare food and find time to arrange a meeting with the food receiver) and provides a benefit to the other party. Additionally, unlike cars, houses, couches, etc., food is a perishable good. This means that once it is given to somebody else, it is gone, unless the person brings it back to you. Thus, as both parties don’t benefit equally, the app might have problems acquiring supporters and gaining popularity.
Secondly, apartments and cars generally do not possess high risk for one’s health, if used properly. On the other hand, food needs to be regulated as it possesses high health risk. If a meal is old, contains some ingredients that the recipient is allergic to or generally was not prepared according to health standards, it could endanger a person’s life. In this case, it might be difficult to determine who the liable person is. Thus, I expect a negative reaction towards the app from regulatory agencies as well as from some social classes. The navigation feature might also attract some criminals.
Finally, because of the above mentioned reasons, I believe that the Leftover Swap app might not experience the same pace and level of popularization and success as some for-profit apps. The social aspect of the application is its greatest feature so in combination with proper safety standards and processes, the app might open up a door for new ways of executing social work. As of now, I am rather skeptical regarding its success and expansion.
Cheers,
Dessy
Thank you for your post, I did not know about this app yet and I find it truly interesting. Food waste is such a major issue nowadays and for the course DBA we are actually creating something to battle this as well!
However, I have my serious doubts to whether this concept will really work and adopted. Despite the fact that indeed the sharing economy is booming, I think health and safety consciousness is more important to people nowadays. Therefore I do not think there are many people that would be willing to accept food from strangers. There are of course some ways in which this could be countered: think about verification of food offerors, or using social media in order to create connections between the offeror and the taker. Apparently, Leftoverswap is already working on a member rating system to tackle this issue. Nevertheless, with some 10,000 users all over the world there must be some support for it.
What I find more disturbing, is the fact that it only helps the environment, not the people in need. Do not take me wrong, I definitely support food waste reduction, but I think it can be battled in a more efficient way by giving it to the people in need. Most of these people, like the homeless, of course do not own a smartphone to be able to make use of this platform. The result is that – in Germany at least – many professionals and people that are not on a tight budget use the app to get something for free where they otherwise should have paid for. My suggestion would be to link the app more to social organizations like the Salvation Army. That way the food does not get wasted either, and it actually helps a better cause. The environmental aspect remains, the social aspect improves and the offeror feels even better about himself.
What do you think about my idea?
Source:
https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/free-food-sharing-leftovers-surplus-local-popular
Hi Joanna,
First of all thank you for your interesting post. I did not hear of the LeftOverSwap App before so thought it was very interesting to read!
I think the idea of this app is absolutely amazing. As you stretch out there are so many people in the world that have nothing to eat at all, and so much food is wasted, that it is really good that this problem is finally addressed in an online manner. For example, for people that live alone, it is really hard to make food for just one person as the portions you can buy are almost always for at least two people. Because of this app also these people can share their food and even maybe get to know each other without wasting any food.
Maybe you can already feel what my opinion is on the notion of sharing economy because of the argument I made just now. But in short, I really think the notion of sharing economy is great. All ideas make sure that items are used way more efficiently than ever before. Therefore, I think the LeftOverSwap App will be a great success!
Hello Joanna,
Thank you for the post. It is very interesting because I did not know about Leftover Swap app.
Indeed, food waste is one of the major issues in the world, and sometimes I was thinking how this problem could be solved. After I read your post, Leftover Swap app might mitigate the problem. The user can share his or her leftover with other users if they are interested in it instead of throwing it directly.
In addition, this app is based on the sharing economy. The recent rise of the sharing economy lies in the fact that sharing platforms contribute a win-win situation for all the stakeholders. The cheaper and easier way to share assets with the aid of technology.
Even though some people still doubt about the safety of the food from strangers, Leftover Swap app is working on tackling it, such as the member rating system and verification of food providers. Thus, if this app can offer the user complete and transparent information of the food, people would increase their trust on the app. I think Leftover Swap app might succeed in the future.
Hi Joanna!
I hadn’t heard about Leftover Swap until I read your post! Overall, I think the application has a good intention behind it, however, I agree with Marthe that the application would be better suited for a different target market. Considering that in the Netherlands alone, there are more than 27000 homeless individuals, this application could help in reducing that number – the less money they spend on food, the more they would be able to save in the long-run. A similar application currently exists in the United States, called Feeding Forward, which has already helped feed 600000 homeless people in San Francisco. Companies and event planners are able to press a button if they have a surplus of food, notifying the Feeding Forward drivers about their location. These drivers then collect the food and bring it to the locations where food is needed the most. This application is not only able to help the environment by reducing food wastage, but also the society by helping feed the homeless!
– https://www.homelessworldcup.org/homelessness-statistics/
– http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/young-woman-develops-phone-app-to-feed-almost-600000-homeless-people-in-san-francisco-10348579.html