Thai startup seeks to tackle food waste, a country’s first

A Bangkok- based startup has become the first in Thailand to launch an application against food waste, as it extends the trend in first-world countries of being more environmentally-conscious in terms of food consumption to Southeast Asia.
Yindii, which calls itself an anti-food waste startup, has launched a mobile application designed to match Bangkok residents with environmentally conscious restaurants, grocery stores and other outlets to combat food waste.
The idea is to sell off excess food that has not been sold to regular clients in restaurant or to grocery shoppers. Normally, most to this food is thrown away and lost.
Yindii addresses the issue with an application that facilitates flash sales for participating businesses. A direct-to-consumer platform creates so-called “happy hour deals” and offers leftover food in surprise boxes with discounts of up to 50 to 70%.
Surprise food boxes for a steep discount
Once a Yindii box offer is published, Yindii users can then purchase the Yindii box before heading to the restaurant to collect their items or getting them delivered. Transactions are completed electronically.
Aside from the savings for food, Yindii says the application is helping to reduce food waste, while consumers would benefit from the app by connecting with their favourite food joints to easily find highly discounted items.
In turn, restaurants and groceries would be enabled to regain potentially lost revenue by not throwing the food away but sell it off.
“About 33 per cent of all food produced globally is wasted or lost every year,” says Yindii founder and tech entrepreneur Louis-Alban Batard-Dupre.
“That is close to a 1.5 billion tonnes which is never consumed, accounting for eight per cent of greenhouse gas emissions around the globe, which is four times more polluting than the airline industry. All this is an ecological disaster,” he adds.
He noted that all the food available on Yindii was untouched and coming from premium places at an affordable price.
Bangkok-based startup Yindii seeks to counter widespread food waste A Bangkok- based startup has become the first in Thailand to launch an application against food waste, as it extends the trend in first-world countries of being more environmentally-conscious in terms of food consumption to Southeast Asia. Yindii, which calls itself an anti-food waste startup, has launched a mobile application designed to match Bangkok residents with environmentally conscious restaurants, grocery stores and other outlets to combat food waste. The idea is to sell off excess food that has not been sold to regular clients in restaurant or to grocery shoppers. Normally,...

A Bangkok- based startup has become the first in Thailand to launch an application against food waste, as it extends the trend in first-world countries of being more environmentally-conscious in terms of food consumption to Southeast Asia.
Yindii, which calls itself an anti-food waste startup, has launched a mobile application designed to match Bangkok residents with environmentally conscious restaurants, grocery stores and other outlets to combat food waste.
The idea is to sell off excess food that has not been sold to regular clients in restaurant or to grocery shoppers. Normally, most to this food is thrown away and lost.
Yindii addresses the issue with an application that facilitates flash sales for participating businesses. A direct-to-consumer platform creates so-called “happy hour deals” and offers leftover food in surprise boxes with discounts of up to 50 to 70%.
Surprise food boxes for a steep discount
Once a Yindii box offer is published, Yindii users can then purchase the Yindii box before heading to the restaurant to collect their items or getting them delivered. Transactions are completed electronically.
Aside from the savings for food, Yindii says the application is helping to reduce food waste, while consumers would benefit from the app by connecting with their favourite food joints to easily find highly discounted items.
In turn, restaurants and groceries would be enabled to regain potentially lost revenue by not throwing the food away but sell it off.
“About 33 per cent of all food produced globally is wasted or lost every year,” says Yindii founder and tech entrepreneur Louis-Alban Batard-Dupre.
“That is close to a 1.5 billion tonnes which is never consumed, accounting for eight per cent of greenhouse gas emissions around the globe, which is four times more polluting than the airline industry. All this is an ecological disaster,” he adds.
He noted that all the food available on Yindii was untouched and coming from premium places at an affordable price.