Kitche – the home food waste app and platform – has announced findings from a groundbreaking project it recently concluded in Jersey with the Channel Islands Coop the first time a supermarket and a technology company have collaborated to address food waste in the home.
The 9-month project, also supported by Govt of Jersey, saw Jersey residents encouraged by Channel Islands Coop to download and use the Kitche app (via multiple communication channels and including instore presence) and aimed to gather data on food waste on the Island.
The successful campaign achieved significant user engagement, with over 2% of all households in Jersey using Kitche. Data collected from the campaign has provided valuable insights into food waste behaviour and showed a downward trend in waste percentage over time among users of the app, highlighting tech’s effectiveness in promoting food waste behaviour change. (The top ten wasted foods in Jersey by percentage are in the attached graphic).
As well as measuring how much of each food type was being thrown away, the campaign identified actionable insights, particularly regarding the most wasted products such as bread, fruit/veg, and meat, and offered opportunities for targeted interventions and behaviour change strategies for the future, including bolder in-store communication.
This partnership between CI Coop and Kitche represents an important transition in the retail industry, directing attention to household food waste rather than the, to-date, focus on supply-side waste. It is hoped that the initiative stands as a model for other retailers to address home food waste and recognise its significant share of overall food waste.
Mark Cox, CEO , CI Coop says: We partnered with Kitche and the Government of Jersey as we want to help our retail customers reduce food waste at home, knowing the majority care about this topic but find it hard to solve. During a time when annual home food waste increased by 13% per person in recent years (according to WRAP), we felt an urgency to tackle this issue as a retailer. Over the past 9 months of working together, we’ve seen a significant number of citizens engage with the Kitche app and we’ve gained actionable insights into food waste that we can address in-store. We learned that cooked meat products were wasted more than expected, along with more typically wasted products like bread and fruit/veg. We will use these valuable insights to support our plans to reduce food waste.”
Alex Vlassopulos, Co-founder and Co-CEO of Kitche says, “It’s been rewarding to work with CI Coop to show how a holistic approach to tackling home food waste is necessary, and more importantly, works. We saw a reduction in waste from those engaged with the Kitche app. We also surfaced helpful unexpected insights on food products wasted, with CI Coop interested in taking forward in future comms and interventions. Kitche provides retailers with real and live data to measure food waste that happens within the home, allowing them to learn and iterate food waste strategies accordingly.”
