Tinder for Food: App Shares Leftovers for a Healthier Planet

Too many leftovers from dinner? Vegetables forgotten in the fridge or cans gathering dust at the back of a cupboard? Instead of tossing them out, why not share them with friends and neighbours and care for the planet at the same time? That is the premise of OLIO, a mobile phone app founded in Britain and part of a wave of businesses using technology to cut waste and help the environment. OLIO is the brainchild of two women entrepreneurs aiming to tackle food waste, “one of the biggest problems facing humanity today”. If that sounds sensationalist, Tessa Cook, the company’s …

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We Have a Collective Responsibility to Halve Food Loss and Waste

Despite the central role food plays in all of our lives, we let a great deal of it go to waste. About one-third of all food produced in the world goes uneaten each year—a fact that harms our climate, costs the global economy billions of dollars and strains natural resources like water and land. Given the enormous impacts, it’s clear why the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals issued Target 12.3’s call to halve food waste and reduce food losses by 2030. But with 13 short years to go, is the world doing enough? According to a new report from Champions 12.3, the …

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Sprout Stack: Shipping containers provide farm-free vegies

Shipping containers could bring farming to the heart of the city as hydroponics and mobile phone apps are harnessed for large-scale urban food production. A Sydney start-up company Sprout Stack has perfected the commercial production of large volumes of leafy greens in shipping containers, producing as much lettuce, herbs or spinach leaves in eight weeks as a hectare of fertile farmland. The containers, filled with towers for growing vegetables, tomatoes and strawberries hydroponically, require only electricity and water. Sprout Stack founder Francisco Caffarena says the farming containers, which can be leased or bought outright, can be stacked on top of …

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