Food waste in the United States is a major problem, with government estimates as much as 40 percent of food stocks get thrown away each year, representing hundreds of billions of pounds of food and more than $100 billion in costs.
While some loss is unavoidable due to mechanical issues, disease, or damages occurring in transport or storage, one large contributing factor is at the consumer level, where misreading or forgetting “best by” dates can lead to unnecessary waste.
What if it were possible to be notified about items in your household nearing their expiration date well in advance?
That’s the foundational idea behind Fresh Now, a mobile application being developed by Taylor Gingrich.
“Like a lot of ideas, the concept for Fresh Now came because of real-world circumstances,” said Gingrich, a senior from Dayton, Ohio. “My roommate and I kept our fridge full, but we often missed expiration dates or forgot what we had in there. As a student, the last thing you want to do is to waste food, because you’re basically just throwing away money. I wanted to come up with a way to easily track your food supply and make sure nothing got wasted.”
Gingrich wanted as many people as possible to be able to conveniently use Fresh Now, so she developed it as a cell phone application.
The user scans their perishable goods using the app when they first buy them, and it sends alerts as the expiration date approaches. That alone would be a worthwhile service, but Gingrich went the extra mile. Instead of only telling you what is about to go bad, Fresh Now provides recipes and food combinations for the items with the closest expiration dates.
“So you get to save time and money twice, both in terms of avoiding having food waste and in coming up with efficient meal ideas based off what you have that needs to be used,” Gingrich said.
It’s a concept that has already gained initial backing, thanks to Gingrich’s wins in both the Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation’s Graves Business Plan Competition and its fall 2022 Vol Court.
The combined $3,500 that she received from the two competitions has helped her work on prototypes and improvements to Fresh Now, bringing her app one step closer to reality.
She’s also quick to credit her coursework for inspiring her to succeed as well.
“I had some courses related to entrepreneurship, and that helped inspire me to take a business- minded approach to develop this app and in presenting it at competitions,” Gingrich said. “Doing research and development when you are trying to create a new app isn’t quick and the costs can add up quickly, so the money I got from the competitions has been key in supporting the current stage of my progress.”
Gingrich’s work in helping to reduce food waste is a win for consumers and producers alike.
Contact
David Goddard(865-974-0683, david.goddard@utk.edu)