Food rescue app, Yume, promises to reduce food waste while increasing profits for foodservice operators.

Yume’s founder Katy Barfield, also the founding CEO of food rescue organisation SecondBite, said the app has already started to play a role in reducing waste throughout Melbourne’s foodservice sector.

As it stands, the Australian food industry is responsible for throwing out around 1.4 million tonnes of edible food waste annually, with individual operators throwing out an average of $15,000 worth of edible food every year.

“Chefs are so passionate about the food they create. The last thing they want to do is throw it away,” Katy said.

“A large number of venues regularly have small amounts of surplus food. Individually, this volume of waste is too small to be serviced by the existing, centralised food rescue model, but collectively, this represents a massive opportunity.

“If every café in Australia reduced the amount of food they threw out by just 1kg per day, we would save 35 tonnes of food from going to land fill every day.”

The app facilitates direct, hyper-local connection between those who have surplus food and those who need it. Katy said Yume complements the work done by food rescue organisations by providing a tool that redistributes food they are unable to collect.

Businesses can choose to either sell their excess food to Yume’s growing list of ‘Yumembers’ – currently at 1700 – or donate it to one of Yume’s list of partner food charities including the Salvation Army, Melbourne City Mission and St Mary’s House of Welcome.

Since its launch in June this year, more than 100 food businesses in Melbourne have signed up to the app including baking businesses Choukette, Wild Things Food, 5 and Dime Bagel, Babka, All Day Doughnuts, Loafer Bread, The Pastry Lounge and Thresherman’s Bakehouse.