Valletta Soup Kitchen Launches App For Supermarkets To Donate Food They Don’t Need
Supermarkets, grocery stores and food producers are being encouraged to donate food they don’t need to food banks and soup kitchens through a new mobile app.
The app, Save The Food, was developed by AI researcher Alexei Dingli for the Valletta OFM Soup Kitchen but is accessible to all NGOs that give food to people in poverty.
It works by effectively matching food businesses with NGOs, with Dingli humorously describing it as a “sort of Bolt against food wastage”.
Food businesses who want to get rid of items which haven’t yet expired can simply create an entry for each product on the app, complete with a small description of it, their contact number and pick-up details.
NGOs will then be able to scroll through the app, choose the listed items they need and pick them up for free. To safeguard against abuse, NGOs will have to sign up and be vetted by the Soup Kitchen beforehand.
Dingli said the idea behind this app was born a few years ago when, in his then-capacity as Valletta mayor, he had presented the President of the Republic with a bill to ban supermarkets from getting rid of the food.
The bill, which was based on a French law, would have forced supermarkets to donate food they don’t need to charities and food banks but it was never adopted by the government.
As he launched the app, Dingli presented some eye-opening statistics from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, estimating that around 88 million tonnes of food, worth some €143 billion, are thrown away globally every year, all while 88 million people cannot afford a quality meal.
What do you think of the app?
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