To encourage our world towards a more sustainable future, the United Nations released 17 Sustainable Development Goals. These ambitious goals aim to influence the economic initiatives by individuals to be more impact driven. Here is the second installment of Impakter’s #Startups4Good series which focuses on those companies and startups actively trying to achieve the SDGs. #SDG2 goal is to end hunger and food waste by 2030.
These innovative entrepreneurs, startups, and companies are already here and are trying to make this change.
Stampify.
Stampify allows consumers to turn shopping behaviors into meals for hungry children. Essentially, Stampify provides consumers loyalty cards: whenever consumers buy products from a company partnered with Stampify, they receive a stamp on their loyalty card. Filling out a full card means feeding a child at school for a whole week.
Stampify specifically targets children in schools that cannot afford their meals. This allows these kids to be as well-nourished as their peers, and be able to focus on their studies rather than on having to find food. Stampify also encourages companies to be part of its project the end hunger by inviting them to join in the plan to provide directly meals at school for children.
Consumers that have Stampify’s loyalty cards are more aware that buying products from a Stampify’s partners could benefit children. On the other side Stampify’s, partners can benefit from more consumers while also supporting the fight against world hunger.
Zero foodwaste as its name suggests, looks to reduce the food waste in the world. By reducing food waste, our world can ensure that food is distributed more efficiently and to the right sources.
Founded in the Netherlands in 2018, Zero foodwaste is the world’s first completely automatic monitor that focuses on food waste. It is essentially a trash can equipped with a camera and a scale: while items are discarded into the Zero foodwaste bin, AI image recognition repeatedly runs through the live camera’s feed to capture what specific food and how much of it is wasted. The scale additionally helps calculate this amount. This data can be combined with other information such as when these items were discarded and the consumer’s behavior to provide additional analytics as well. These insightful data analytics can report what is being wasted and what should be done to prevent this.
Zero foodwaste especially targets restaurants and households. Restaurants can accumulate a lot of food waste after a full day of making meals. Zero foodwaste alerts them what foods they need to cut back on buying too much of and then prevent food waste. Similarly, household consumers can learn what foods they are consistently wasting and can cut back on reducing this. Zero foodwaste provides a smart technology solution to reducing overspending on food and preventing food waste. And less food waste means more food available for those struggling with hunger.
Plant Jammer provides another smart solution to reducing food waste using advanced technology. With the Plant Jammer app, one can easily find recipes and ways to utilize their remaining ingredients to make a new meal. This cuts back on the food waste that results from ingredients decaying away in the fridges and pantries across the world.
Created in 2018, Plant Jammer utilizes AI technology to find recipes and other ingredients to go along with the ones you are planning to use. Plant Jammer also notes your taste and dietary preferences as it works to provide you with the best recipes and ingredient combinations possible. The dynamic app inspires many households across the world to try out new recipes with the ingredients they already have while reducing food waste in the process.
Goodr also looks to fight against food waste and world hunger through its innovative platform. Founded in 2017, Goodr provides a place to facilitate food donations from businesses to the starving people that need it. This innovative solution coordinates the drop off and pick up of the surplus food so that they are placed in the right hands in a timely fashion. In the process, these companies can also record how much surplus food they have donated. This information can inspire them to make further impact in the future.
As mentioned in Goodr’s mission statement, Goodr’s main objective is to enable the safe delivery of surplus food produced by businesses to the people and non profit organizations that need it. This directly tackles the issue of world hunger through food distribution efficiency; surplus food will be given to hungry hands rather than rotting as waste. Goodr solves a major food waste and hunger problem in businesses through its innovative platform.
Here we can see that how recently founded startups are tackling world hunger and food waste. In the process of trying to make money, these innovative solutions create social change at the same time. This includes even ambitious objectives like the UN’s #SDG2 of having no hunger and food waste by 2030.
Check back next week for more #Startups4Good ! The real game changers of our world.
In the Cover Photo: An empty plate with a sad face drawn on it. Photo Credit: Unsplash
EDITOR’S NOTE: The opinions expressed here by Impakter.com columnists are their own, not those of Impakter.com.
