In a move reminiscent of the Victorian Age, when those "downstairs" lived off the scraps of those "upstairs", a new app 'PareUp' is set to revolutionize the way the increasingly poor and starving masses in America feed themselves. As HuffPo reports [4], in a country that wastes between 30 and 40 percent [5] of its food, PareUp is a new app that aims to connect consumers to restaurants and food shops with excess food - enabling the impoverished to benefit from the excess greed of the well-to-do by buying their used and forgotten food scraps (at significant discounts of course). "Good food is a terrible thing to waste," boasts the app - and rightly so - but is it not a dismally sad reflection of a nation, that opines of its all time high stock prices as indicative of its cleanest dirty shirt status, that we need this service (and there's an app for that!)
As The Huffington Post reports, [4]
"Good food is a terrible thing to waste." So reads the opening quote on PareUp's website. PareUp is a new app that aims to connect consumers to restaurants and food shops with excess food. Before retailers throw away food, they alert PareUp users and offer the extra food at a discounted price.
In a country that wastes between 30 and 40 percent of its food [5], PareUp is an app that is sorely needed.
PareUp is the brainchild of Margaret Tung, Jason Chen and Anuj Jhunjhunwala. The founders identified the common issue of throwing away unused food at home, and wanted to help chronic food wasters make good use of food doomed for the trash.
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The retailers will set the rate of the discounted food, and consumers can choose to take advantage of it if they're interested.
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Many bakeries already give out "day old" pastries for a discounted price, and PareUp is hoping to bring that practice to all kinds of food retailers.
So first Greece extends the date on "fresh milk" acceptable for human consumption... and now the US turns day-old, stale, rotting food into a profit center for the poor and starving.
Finally, it is amusing that a business model does exist which assumes that those who have to sift through others' garbage will also have an iPhone and a monthly cell phone contract. Or maybe it is all part of the next fiscal stimulus: ObamaGarbage?