The market for anti-waste applications - Italy

1.2 The Global Market

Every year about */* of all food produced globally is thrown away totaling about *.* billion tons annually with a value of about US$* trillion, a value that could feed *** million who go hungry every day. Food waste per person by consumers is between ** and *** kilograms per year in Europe, North America, and Oceania, while consumers in sub-Saharan Africa and South and Southeast Asia throw away * to ** kilograms of food per year[***]

Globally, China is the most wasteful nation, about **.** million tons, followed by India, **.**, and Nigeria, **.**. Germany and France are the top countries in Europe in this ranking, with a wastage of *.** and *.** million tons.

Annual household food waste generated in selected countries worldwide as of **** World, ****, in millions of tons Source: ****

To counter this phenomenon, many anti-waste apps have sprung up in recent years. These seem to have great potential to change consumer behavior regarding food waste because almost all consumers today own a smartphone or tablet and apps are often inexpensive, so a large number of consumers can be reached through interventions using smartphone apps. In addition, apps have the potential to reach populations that previously had limited access to interventions or information. In addition, different forms of communication can ...

1.3 The Italian market

According to the Food Sustainability Index ****, each household threw **kg of food into the trash, food services another **kg and retail sales *kg. This means that each Italian citizen, directly or indirectly, was responsible for wasting **kg of food. This implies a waste of about * million tons with a waste value of about *.* billion euros.[***]

Different are the Italian food wastes, if we take into consideration the wastes of households and activities such as bars, restaurants etc.. we can see how the foods that are most thrown away are those related to the fruit and vegetable sector, followed by bread and meat. If taken in value data, on the other hand, fruit and vegetables is still the department with the most weight (***).

Share of waste by department by weight Italy, ****, in percent Source : SprecoZero for this reason, the use of anti-food waste apps is also developing in Italy. According to data retrieved from the Reale Mutua Observatory, **% of Italians, as of ****, have used an anti-food waste app.

Then there are several anti-waste applications made in Italy, such as UBOshort for Una Buona Occasione that explains how to preserve food, use kitchen scraps, make a seasonal shopping list, and even read expiration ...

2.1 Food waste in Italy

When discussing food waste, it is appropriate to distinguish between two categories of waste:

Food loss (***) : such waste occurs upstream in the agrifood chain, due to climatic factors, technical means used, perishability, poor harvest storage and unsuitable management of the product by the farmer-producer Food waste in thenarrow sense (***) : such waste occurs during the stages of industrial processing, distribution and final consumption.

Anti-waste applications, at this time of the market, act more on food waste, being, very often, a service intended for the final consumer.

We have already mentioned some data on food waste in Italian households, if we then add to these wastes those of the production chain, the value of food waste in Italy reaches **.* billion euros.

Data from ****, show how food waste has increased by ** percent compared to **** data. If taken into account only direct household waste, and not considering indirect waste,each Italian throws away an average of ***.* grams per capita per week, or **.*** kg per year. This compares with *** grams per week in ****.

For households, the foods that are most wasted, according to a survey by WASTE WATCHER, are fresh fruit (***).

There are several reasons why Italians waste food. We can see from the chart below, ...

2.2 The new consumption habits of Italians

Italians are becoming more aware of how necessary and essential it is to adopt more sustainable consumption patterns. **% of Italians lead a more sustainable lifestyle since the beginning of the pandemic and **% would be willing to spend more on green products[***].

Italians are aware of the negative effects of waste such as wasting money, the diseducational effect on young people, the immorality of throwing away food caused by the awareness of wasting vital resources, and the increase in pollution.

Therefore, Italians are adopting various consumption strategies to reduce food waste. A study conducted in early **** on a population sample of *,*** cases studied new consumer choices. It found that most prefer to buy long shelf life so that they can manage consumption time themselves. To reduce waste then of ready-to-eat food, Italians will more carefully evaluate the quantities to be cooked and say they are more likely to store leftover food to be consumed at a later time.

Purchasing strategies then also change, with ** percent of the sample surveyed shown to be inclined to buy food with a long shelf life, ** percent to buy small sizes and/or organize their pantry and refrigerator by product expiration.

Consumer strategies to reduce waste Italy, ...

2.3 Waste in catering and large-scale retail trade

**% of food waste occurs at the food service and consumption stage. Most food waste in the restaurant industry occurs during the food preparation stage (***) . Consequently, the responsibility for so much waste lies with chefs, those who work in kitchens, and end customers, but also with restaurant managers who often plan wrong purchases[***].

If the entire food supply chain is analyzed, it is precisely the restaurant sector that produces the most waste, at a source of turnover of the entire sector as much as ** percent of what is cooked/purchased is surplus or waste. This is followed by the agricultural sector, with a value of waste of *.* bn, about * percent of the sector's total turnover (***). Agricultural, pre- and post-harvest waste are also taken into account here. Close behind is large-scale retail, whose value of waste is '*% of industry turnover.

Value of waste along the entire production chain Italy, ****, in billions of euros Source: ****

reducing waste in the restaurant industry allows for cost optimization and ensures a more correct management control of the business. To avoid waste, thus minimizing the amount of unused food is necessary organization at the management level. Both in terms of inventory management and in thinking about dishes ...

3.1 Most popular anti-waste apps

Several apps are involved in food waste management. Given the fact that the market is relatively new, it is not possible to distinguish different market shares. However, there are players that are more established than others in the Italian market due to the fact that they were born earlier or due to their innovation in the services they offer.

The following will list the apps, non-Italian, that are most popular in the Italian territory :

Too Good to Go is obviously the market leader in Italy. The app, born in Denmark in ****, has been active in Italy since **** and, as of ****, is present in more than ** Italian cities and has more than ** million active users. The app's business model is to allow merchants and restaurateurs to sell unopened food at the end of the day at reduced prices. In fact, consumers buy "magic boxes" on the site, the contents of which are almost always uncertain, at a third of the sale price. Too Good To Go is probably the best-known and most widely used anti-food waste app in Italy. So much so that even the Italian Red Cross has decided to make use of it to collect donations to support the work ...

3.2 The most popular anti-waste apps in Italy

Most of the active applications in the market, however, are of Italian origin. In fact, there are many projects and applications born in recent years to counter the phenomenon of food waste. This is an indication of how this type of market is clearly expanding and how Italian consumers like to use this type of service.

The most successful Italian apps are as follows :

Last Minute Sotto Casa app born in Turin in **** is the largest Italian digital anti-waste community. It connects shopkeepers and consumers: the shopkeeper communicates that he has fresh food close to expiration or surplus food and sends discounted offers, with prices reduced by **/** %. It has about ***,*** users. UBO is an application born from the collaboration between IZSTO, Chemical Laboratory CCIAA Turin and with Water Footprint data. It has the characteristic of acting at the initial stage, the app in fact offers for *** foods, news, tips and advice on how, where and how long to store them (***), recommended portions, the relative water footprint and nutritional intake, reuse of leftovers and waste, seasonality of fruits and vegetables, how to make a shopping list and more. There is also a "Deadline Memo" section, a valuable aid in remembering which food ...

4.1 The products

We have seen how anti-waste appliactions are continuously increasing. We can distinguish between two different types of mobile apps :

A progressive web application (***) is like a mobile version of an existing website. It opens on a web browser for smartphones, tablets, or computers. A native application is an application that users will be able to download from the Apple App Store, Google Play Store. A native app allows push messages to be sent to the consumer that are very difficult to delete.

Between app store and google store there are hundreds of anti-waste applications that are available for download. Most are free but there is no shortage of paid apps. An example of a paid app is KIFF: Food Expiration Tracker, costs €*.**, and allows users to track the expiration dates of their food by scanning labels, keep track of the time that has passed since a product was purchased or opened, and gives insight into the user's consumption habits.

Applications on the market can be classified into * categories:

Applications to keep track of expiration dates of products Applications to buy expiring products from supermarkets and corner stores Applications to buy leftover food from restaurants, rotisseries, bakeries, etc. Applications to make donations ...

4.2 The different business models

We can distinguish four different business models in the mobile application market

The Freemium model consists of offering the application for free and pushing customers to purchase additional features. This model maximizes the value of a customer over time, and then deploys a free customer base that will convert new customers. An example is emptying fridges and other applications that allow tracking the expiration date of food. These sell additional products in exchange for a monthly subscription fee. The free model is financed by advertising and is more suitable for utility applications provided that the frequency and time of use of the application is sufficiently important to attract advertisers. Advertising is integrated in the form of banners or content. Most applications are born with this business model. the paid model in which the idea is to charge to download an application. This model, previously dominant in iOS, is being set aside in favor of "Freemium" or "Free." The transactional model consists of billing for the purchase of a product in the application, usually by payment by credit card, or through a trusted third party (***). This model has been developed by online merchants. An example is apps such as Too Good to ...

5.1 Regulation

Several regulations have been enacted at both the community and national levels to reduce food waste. As early as ****, the U.N. General Assembly set a goal of halving per capita food waste at the retail and consumer level and reducing food losses along supply and production chains by ****.

The European Union has issued a directive to align with this goal and has a plan to introduce legally binding targets by ****. This pathway involves both the Circular Economy Action Plan and the From farm to fork strategy for a sustainable food system. Both are pillars of the European Green Deal, the green transition plan aimed at zeroing the Continent's climate impact by ****.

At the national level, GADDA Law ***/**** has been in force in Italy since ****, which provides for interventions to reduce food waste at any stage of the production chain. Specifically, the lege provides for :

Creation of a regulatory framework within which to include the already existing regulations on tax relief (***); It is intended quinid to create a homogeneous regulatory framework on sanitary and hygiene. Clear definition of food sector operator, transferring parties, food surplus, food waste, donation, minimum shelf life and expiration date, etc.; Possibility for authorities to donate confiscated ...

6.1 Segmentation

*Since most of the applications in the market are newly born or otherwise start-ups, most are not yet profitable and manage to operate through fundraising from private and/or institutional investors.

• Winnow
• Food Cloud
• Planeat
• Eco Food Prime
• Regusto
• My Foody
• KARMA
• OLIO
• Phenix
• Too Good To Go Italia