Bristol students develop app to cut food waste

The app shows users their meal selection alongside the estimated food miles and carbon cost of producing the dish

Four students from the University of Bristol have developed an app to reduce food waste in the education sector.

The app informs caterers of the exact number of diners and their meal choice and it makes diners aware of the environmental cost of their meal too.

Sophie Elliott, Edward Stratton, Charlie Royle and Kesta Kemp are behind KnoWaste tech start-up.

They aim to cut food waste by up to 50% in universities and schools and have been awarded £10,000 to help them.

The team behind KnoWaste had to demonstrate ideas with the potential to make a real and lasting impact on the world

The web-based app is a "two-pronged solution" to food waste and sustainable eating, final year geography and innovation student, Edward Stratton said.

"Catering teams know the exact number of diners eating but also the choice of meal, so that reduces production and spoilage waste.

"On the diner side, we use gamification and visualisation techniques to inform diners of the environmental cost of their food and improve the overall dining experience."

'Cultural shift'

Similar pre-ordering meal systems exist such as ParentPay's Meal Manager and School Grid. The main difference with KnoWaste is the environmental focus, anthropology with innovation student Ms Kemp said.

Using a combination of self-built and online databases, the app illustrates the carbon cost in miles driven and water used in litres to produce each meal.

A traffic light system then reflects the environmental cost per meal.

While the scaling was an estimate, "as we build up our database, it [the data] can become much more accurate and tailored to the organisation", she added.

The technology has been trialled in schools in Cornwall and Bristol and is currently limited to individual and single sets of menus.

Diners log in and pick their food choices for the week ahead, to help reduce waste and spoilage, the app developers said

With the £10,000 award the students said they hoped to further develop the technology and run multiple trials in September when they roll it out to five schools in the South West.

Mr Stratton worked as a cook for three years and said the concept of 'invisible waste' had inspired their project.

"We want to help a cultural shift towards more sustainable consumption behaviours. That is the long-term ideal for us," he said.

In future the group aims to roll out the app in schools nationwide and use it for hospitals, catered offices and more universities.