App aims to cut food waste and shopping bills

App aims to cut food waste and shopping bills

Gander has developed the world’s first real-time mobile app to help food stores clear more of its reduced-to-clear – often yellow labelled – food produce. It will be rolled out in the 19 Morrisons Daily stores in Jersey and Guernsey this week.

The programme was developed by a team in the Isle of Man and launched in Northern Ireland in late 2019 across 310 Spar, Eurospar, Vivo and VivoXtra stores.

It displays reduced-to-clear food items in stores in real time and automatically removes items when they are sold, providing instant information for shoppers while they browse.

Data gathered from app, which has more than 55,000 users, indicates that 45% more reduced food is being sold, preventing it from going to waste and shoppers are making an average saving of 56% on their weekly food shop.

Yellow-label items which automatically appear on the Gander app are selling 40% quicker than they would have and, on average, stores using the app sell 85% to 100% of their reduced-to-clear stock.

Jersey throws away an estimated 14,000 tonnes of food waste per year and it was reported that households in Guernsey
threw away 4,200 tonnes of food waste in 2018.

Ashley Osborne, co-founder of Gander, said: ‘We are delighted to be partnering with SandpiperCI to roll out the Gander app in their Morrisons Daily stores across Jersey and Guernsey.

‘The Gander app takes significant strides towards giving retailers and shoppers alike the ability to have a more sustainable and mindful approach to food shopping.’

He added: ‘Environmentally, food waste is a crisis and it is one of today’s growing issues that is forecast to increase substantially by 2030 unless serious action is taken. A significant proportion of this waste is completely avoidable.

‘For retailers reduced food can be exceedingly expensive and at a time when margins are being squeezed this is revenue sitting on their shelves and that shoppers locally would love to buy – they just don’t know it is there.’

Mike Rutter, SandpiperCI’s retail managing director, added: ‘We are delighted to have partnered with Gander to bring this unique initiative to our Morrisons Daily stores in the Channel Islands.

‘We believe it will benefit our customers through easier access to reduced-price-food products while also helping to tackle environmental problems associated with avoidable food waste.

‘We know that many of our customers feel strongly about this issue and by introducing the Gander app we will encourage Islanders to purchase in a smarter, more sustainable way while also making savings.’

The Gander app can be downloaded via the Apple or Android app stores and can be used to locate reduced items in Morrisons Daily stores. It is expected that the app will be adopted by further retail outlets throughout 2020.

In addition to the Channel Islands and Northern Ireland, Gander is rolling out across the UK and Republic of Ireland with the aim of reducing waste at a national level as well.

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