This new 'dating app' for ugly fruits and veggies has already saved $18,000 worth of produce
Cerplus
Food waste is a global epidemic, but it's especially problematic in the US.
People don't buy bruised fruits and vegetables, so grocers will throw them out before they reach the shelves. For the same reason, farmers will also trash crops that they think grocery stores won't buy.
Added up, Americans throw out 113 billion pounds of food annually — which is worth about $161 billion.
A new site, called Cerplus, aims to alleviate food waste by matching farmers directly with restaurants and grocery stores in northern California. Think of it as a dating site for food.
Since its launch in January, the San Francisco-based startup has saved 20,000 pounds of produce, co-founder Zoe Wong tells Tech Insider. That's $18,000 worth of food, she adds.
Cerplus
With Cerplus, farmers can offer their unwanted produce to grocers and restaurants at a discounted price, rather than throwing out those fruits and vegetables.
Let's say you work on a farm, and you have surplus peaches. After you sign up for Cerplus, you create a profile for your peaches and attach a photo. You also list your price, total volume, and minimum volume for purchase.
Cerplus is geared toward retailers — the majority of fruits and veggies are sold wholesale — so small food businesses, like cafés, grocers, and restaurants, can sign on and order what they want. The Cerplus team handles the logistics — they go to the farms, bring the produce to a small, refrigerated warehouse, then deliver it to the buyer.
"Produce moves very quickly," Wong says. "It comes in one day and goes out the next."
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Cerplus' revenue comes from the small service fee it collects from sellers.
Food retailers also make out on the deal, because the produce usually costs about 30% less than the standard wholesale price.
Cerplus
Before Wong started Cerplus, she made homemade jams from fruits that farmers markets didn't sell.
Realizing first-hand just how much produce is thrown out, Wong wanted to help solve food waste on a larger scale. In January 2016, she launched Cerplus with developer Kyle Brett, who handles the tech side.
Most of the food they collect either looks weird in shape, color, size, or is a little under ripe. "But it's still tasty," she says.
In the future, the team also plans to sell other food groups, including dairy, meat, and grains.
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Wong says tech can be a useful tool to fight food waste.
"Cerplus can give farmers information about who wants what and where," she says. "Otherwise they wouldn't know about it."
Cerplus
The team is also developing algorithms that can learn buyers' habits and make predictions about their needs, like the type of food, time of year, and volume. The site will then notify them when there's a batch of something they might want.
As more buyers and sellers start to use the site, the startup will be able to gather more data, and the algorithm will become more accurate.
So far, Cerplus works with 20 farms, but it plans to expand to other parts of California and eventually nationwide — though Wong doesn't feel a need to do that too soon.
"California grows 50% of the country's produce," she says. "So there's a lot of work to be done."
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