CozZo App is a food manager, combined with a versatile shopping and cooking planner that helps to avoid food waste by tracking what you have and when it expires
According to UN data, one third of the food that the world produces is discarded. Food waste generated per year is about Households in Europe and North America. The largest source of food waste are the households accounting for 53% of the total, 19% comes from food processing, 12% from restaurants and catering, 11% from initial production and 5% from retail and wholesale. Last but not least, food waste contributes to global warming. Food waste in plastic bags, along with other plastic, paper, metal and glass waste deposited on the landfills, releases large amounts of methane and carbon dioxide, gases that are directly related to global warming.
CozZo is an intuitive store-to-fork groceries management app for families that seek a smart way to plan, shop and track food so as to avoid wasting it. Aditional benefits for the application users is that it helps for proper planning of the purchase, saves money and optimizes the way a households is managed. CozZo combines a smart shopping list with a pro-active inventory catalog that makes it possible for the users to manage their kitchens with the efficiency of a first-class restaurant. The app tracks food expiration dates and sends reminders at the right time to ensure that no food will be wasted.
The customers find the pantry-inventory CozZo app very helpful and easy to use.
The stakeholders involved are the citizens, research institutions, local authorities and waste management operators.
Resources needed
For the first stage of the platform's development, Cogzum received 100,000 euros in funding from an investment company which supports green technology innovation projects. The start-up company is also applying for European funding. The product was developed in close collaboration with scientists.
Evidence of success
The application has been downloaded nearly 10,000 times and is officially available in five markets - Bulgaria, USA, UK, Netherlands and Ireland. Further expansion in other countries will be possible after the application will be offered also in German and Spanish language. And soon the company will offer its own smart kitchen appliances, as well as many other additional features of the application.
Difficulties encountered
Offering innovative products requires good understanding and certain knowledge about “virtual online reality of today’s world”.
Other challenges; external financing; there is money moderately available for research, development and study. Lack of active inclusion of public authorities in support
Potential for learning or transfer
The presented business model is transferable since it addresses a common problem in all Europe – generation of large amount of food waste by the households.
The company has been successful in entering the international markets. The possibility to use the application in different languages and on different systems and devices makes it possible to use it in different countries. Negotiation with large supermarket chains with online stores makes it possible in the future the application to offer the opportunity for online food shopping. As research shows that it is becoming an increasingly popular and preferred choice especially in the COVID – 19 type of situations. A plus for the business model of the platform is that the supermarkets with which they will partner are international chains, which will facilitate negotiations with foreign representations.
Tags: Food, Innovation, Waste
