VO: According to US and EU statistics, restaurants and supermarkets are responsible for 12% and 5% of the total food waste. While the largest share of food loss – 53% comes from households. Two years ago, a Bulgarian company developed a free iPhone/iPad app that assists consumers in their shopping process.
Ivo Dimitrov, CozZo Founder: The app helps us plan our shopping and cooking, helps us during the shopping itself and after that. It monitors all the food we have bought so as to remind use it in time before it goes bad or loses its taste.
Currently, we have almost 130 000 users, primarily in the US and UK, where we first launched and where the CozZo app was met very enthusiastically, both by consumers and by different NGO’s.
VO: Ganka is an avid cook and foodie. She has been using the CozZo app for over a year now and sees a significant change in the way she shops.
Dr. Dineva: I have created a list of all the products I have at home. This helps me during shopping. If I want to make a soup, for instance, I can open the app in the store and check if I have meat, if I have onions, do I need to buy onions, so I don’t need to memorize all those details. If I am at home and I run out of something, I just add it to the “to buy” list.
VO: The CozZo app also keeps a food journal that has helped Ganka significantly decrease her monthly grocery bill.
GD: When I started using the app, I realized I was throwing away almost 20% of all the food I have bought. Now, I have gone down to binning no more than 5% of all the food that enters the household.
Our monthly grocery bill is approximately $400, which means that we are able to save about 70-80 dollars on average per month.
VO: The Food Bank hopes that the legislation will be changed to facilitate the companies that want to donate food. Every person can also contribute to solving the global problem of food waste by donating money, volunteering or simply by shopping more wisely.
Tsanka Milanova, Executive Director of Food Bank: …by entering the store with a list, by sticking to our intentions and sticking to the things we need to prepare our meal. If we see a good price promotion, we don’t have to take advantage of it at all costs.
Because then we end buying more than we need. Although we might be paying less for that food, buying on promotion is one of the shortest routes part of the food to end up in the bin.
View or Read about CozZo app as featured on bTV, “Before Noon”
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