Foodprint is a free app that prevents food from going to waste, by giving local eateries a platform to sell their surplus food at a discounted price.
Customers receive a notification when their favourite cafes are in need of "rescue" and can buy food that would otherwise go to waste, directly through the app.
As an incentive, these discounts range from 30% to as high as 90% off the original marked price.
After a delayed launch due to the pandemic, the app hit Dunedin streets yesterday and one business was already starting to see results.
Taste Nature owner and shopkeeper Clinton Chambers said the store already had three pickups within about the first two hours of the app launching.
Mr Chambers said it was "always a juggling match" when it came to selling their Pane Ora gluten-free bread, which they needed to make a certain amount of every day, and it was always heartbreaking to throw out food.
"Some days you just don’t sell out," he said.
"This gives us an opportunity to shift some of that backlog and get the product out to customers instead of us hanging on to it for so long."
Excess milk was also turned into a yoghurt, which the shop planned to sell using the app as well as extra food left over from its cafe.
Mr Chambers said the store already had a stringent internal waste management system and a closed-circuit composting system, but he suspected the impact of the new app would be "significant enough" to have an effect on landfill.
"The more technology that comes online to help people minimise waste can only be a good thing."
Modaks cafe owner Jack Bradbury said the app was a good idea and the cafe planned to start using it this week.
"Hopefully it works. There’s only so many cheese scones the guys can take home themselves that we’ve got left over before they get sick of them as well.
"If someone else can enjoy them then that would be quite good, especially in the current economic climate."
Foodprint has partnered with about 20 local businesses across Dunedin and Mosgiel, and plans to expand to more.
Founder and chief executive Michal Garvey said food waste was a problem that should not exist and was easily solved.
About a-third of food that was produced for human consumption went to waste and this accounted for up to 10% of greenhouse gas emissions, she said.
Businesses could track the approximate amount of carbon emissions they saved by using the app.
"In both a cost of living and climate crisis, there is simply no good reason to waste food," she said.
Foodprint was the recipient of a waste minimisation grant from the Dunedin City Council in November.
Council waste minimisation strategy officer Leigh McKenzie said the council was pleased to support Foodprint through the grant and to see the app launch in Dunedin.
