Smart in everyday life

Fighting food waste with an app

Tech and AI can provide solutions to any problem, from small, daily concerns to global issues. Apps are the best way to do that: of course, they need some knowledge to be developed, but with a little bit of creativity you can have your practical solution right in your pocket. They’re handy, they’re fun, they’re flexible: an app can be customized for any needs really.

That’s why when we learned of Clean Your Plate we thought it was the perfect way to tackle a widespread problem like food waste, an issue which worries us a lot, connected to the environmental crisis and the World hunger. A smart solution and a highly effective way, it works through the visualized mini-program, with whom people can directly see the good results of saving food, which will effectively reduce waste.

After finishing the dinner at the restaurant, you simply open the mini-program, take a photo of the empty plate and you’ll be awarded points you can then use to purchase gifts, such as books, cellphones and wine, or to purchase charity meals for children in impoverished rural areas. Will it solve the food waste? We’ll see. For now, it’s working very well. Clean Your Plate is supported by Chinese government agencies, together with media, social organizations and KOLs to spread its message and it currently has nearly 1 million users.

It’s just an example showing how powerful can apps – these flexible tools that can be customized and designed in different ways  – be. Creativity, ease of use and (why not?) fun to encourage people to act: we believe this is the best way to solve problems. Don’t you agree?