How Saveful is Helping Households Reduce Food Waste
A not-for-profit supporting Australian farmers sprouted the idea for an app to help households reduce food waste – and save money. Co-founder and CEO Kim McDonnell explains.
Fact file
Co-founders: Kim McDonnell (above), CEO, 57, and Mike Chuter, COO, 55
Investors: Friends and family
Corporate partners: Qantas, Rabobank, Goodman Fielder, Nestlé, Birds Eye, Bega Group (founding sponsors), plus AGL, SunRice Group, Bakers Delight, Chief, Fridge Friend, Gander Australia, Gumtree, Good & Fugly, OzHarvest Use it Up, SPC
First Saveful user: November 2023
Headquarters: Melbourne
Number of employees: Two
What’s your elevator pitch?
“We started Thankful4Farmers in 2019 when Australia was suffering the worst drought in living memory, followed by horrific bushfires and floods in some communities. By speaking to a lot of producers we learnt that while they were enormously appreciative of the support they were receiving, what they wanted was to be valued. Climate change and food security are the world’s two biggest challenges and farmers are at the heart of the solutions to both. Globally, 61 per cent of food waste occurs in our homes and we developed Saveful to address that.”
What problem are you solving?
“Food waste is a $36.6 billion problem annually in Australia. On average, each household throws away $2800 worth of food every year – that’s one in five shopping bags of food we buy. If food waste was a country it would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gasses in the world. In Australia, an area larger than the size of Victoria is used to grow food that ends up being thrown in rubbish bins and as families feel the pinch of the cost-of-living crisis, 70 per cent of the food we put in our bins is still perfectly edible.”
How does it work?
“Saveful is a digital tool to help Australians use more of what they already have in their fridge, freezer and pantry. It’s a free app that starts with ingredients rather than the end meal – you put in the ingredients you have and it presents chef-created meal options. You can personalise the recipe based on your preferences, dietary requirements and the ingredients. Saveful also tracks your impact so you can see your savings in kilograms of food and dollars. The most impactful and easiest thing we can do to fight climate change is to save food at home.”
How did you get it off the ground?
“My husband, Mike, and I had spent our careers working in advertising and marketing and at a certain point we asked ourselves if we wanted to use our skills to try to make the world a better place. So we sold everything that we owned – including the family home – to fund the development of the Saveful app.”
How did you convince corporate sponsors to support you?
“We took the prototype of the app to several organisations and six of them recognised our passion and decided to take a leap of faith before we even had a single user. The sponsors know that food waste is a huge problem from a sustainability and societal perspective. Since then, we’ve brought in other partners with the aim of building a network of companies that have a genuine commitment to help Australian families reduce food waste and save money.”
What’s next?
“We launched Saveful in November 2023 and now have more than 33,000 users across Australia – with almost 12,000 having linked it to their Qantas Frequent Flyer account to earn points. We want to get more brands on board in Australia, to partner with a major retailer and scale globally. The value exchange for our partners is the data insights about Saveful users that we can provide them with. We know down to the postcode level what ingredients people are searching for in the app. We could integrate with supermarket loyalty programs and by knowing what users have bought, build them a digital fridge, freezer and pantry and send notifications, ‘If you haven’t used the chicken you bought here’s a recipe we know you’ll love because of the meals you’ve chosen previously.’ Our partners receive a quarterly impact report and companies that are normally deemed to be competitors are working together on co-branded initiatives with Saveful, which is really exciting.”
