Have you ever imagined being refunded a percentage of the price you paid for a food product just because it was about to expire? Well, it’s already a reality. Kigüi is the name of the application that seeks to encourage consumers to buy food with a near expiration date and give them the benefit of a discount. All for helping to not waste food.
Reduce food waste and get paid
The founders of this startup (Mauricio Kremer, Maximiliano Dicranian, and Gonzalo Castro) commented on their short and long-term goals they envision for the company, which is also part of Newtopia VC’s portfolio. «We want to be the benchmark Marketplace for food service. We are currently validating the model in Argentina. But we hope to expand to Mexico, Colombia, and Chile this year, in other words, to regionalize».
Impact of zero food waste
What Kigüi intends to do is to act as an intermediary, but with a clear objective: zero food waste. «Worldwide, more than 128 million tons of food are thrown away every year, equivalent to 30 million truckloads. Between 4% and 5% of food that enters a supermarket is thrown away», says Dicranian. Therefore, what they do is to work with suppliers to reach an agreement to reduce the price of products that are about to expire and that are the ones that customers do not buy. The product is offered in the app, and the end consumer buys it and a percentage is refunded.
In the end, says the Kigüi team, this action has a triple impact: an economic one -both for the supplier and the consumer-, the second is to save a product that is going to be thrown away and, lastly and most importantly, there is an environmental impact in the reduction of garbage and waste. Although they are currently working only with supermarket chains, they do not rule out including sub-markets and restaurants in the future.
How Kigüi reduces food waste
The app, which is already available, was designed so that end consumers can easily manage it; it shows the food categories, as well as the participating brands so that consumers can easily select what they are looking for.
- Once they have seen the product that has a discount they can go to the participating chain
- Buy it
- Send a photo of the ticket along with a photo of the product that shows the expiration date
- Sent in the app
- Once the information is processed, part of the cost of the product is returned to their bank account.
«We want to improve the world, put a stop to a dynamic that many people don’t know about. To do our bit to solve the problem of food waste. But we also need more people to join in. Together we can make a change and help society and the environment,»
Kigüi Team
