Building a Hyperlocal Marketplace to Reduce Food Waste

Sector

Sustainability - FoodTech

Engagement

MVP

Timeline

6 weeks

0/1 THE PROBLEM

Food waste is local —
but the response wasn't.

Every evening, perfectly good food gets binned three streets away from the people who'd happily pay for it. The infrastructure to connect those two facts, in real time, simply didn't exist for most neighbourhood-scale businesses.

1.3bn

Tonnes of edible food wasted globally every year — roughly a third of everything produced for human consumption.

Source · UNEP, 2024

1.1m

Tonnes discarded annually by UK hospitality alone — most of it on the same day it could have been sold.

Source · WRAP, 2024

68%

Of independent food businesses surveyed had no system at all for moving surplus stock before close.

Source · Independant research, n=84

0/2 APPROACH

Three principles
we held the line on.

Most food-rescue products try to be national from day one. We argued the opposite: get one neighbourhood right, then repeat. The whole architecture was built around three commitments.

Hyper-local by default

No listing visible beyond a 1.5km radius. No nationwide search. Discovery is geographic — if you can't walk or cycle to it before close, the product doesn't show it to you. This was non-negotiable.

Real-time pricing

Surplus loses value by the minute. We built a decay-pricing engine that drops a listing's price as closing time approaches — so a £12 lasagna at 5pm becomes £4 at 8pm, automatically, without vendor effort.

Sustainability, made visible

Every rescued meal shows the user their personal CO₂e saved, water saved, and meals diverted. Impact isn't a footer link — it's the reason the product exists, so it's the loudest thing in the receipt.

0/3 THE PRODUCT

A two-sided marketplace
that moves at closing-time speed.

This is a single product with two faces: a fast-as-a-text-message vendor app, and a map-led consumer experience. Both are designed for the 30-minute window where the magic actually happens.

  • Vendors photograph, name, set quantity, and confirm pickup window. Defaults learn from prior listings — the second one takes 18 seconds on average.

  • Consumers see what's available right now, within walking or cycling distance, sorted by minutes-until-collection-closes. No infinite scroll — just what's nearby and now.

  • Prices automatically drop on a curve set by the vendor. Sellers recover revenue they would have written off; buyers get a reason to act before the window closes.

  • Every collection generates a receipt showing CO₂e avoided, water saved, and a running personal total. Users share these — they're the product's best marketing channel.

  • A single screen showing rescued revenue this week, trend versus last week, and waste avoided. Helps vendors brief landlords, accountants, and ESG-curious investors.