Have you ever encountered a situation when you can’t remember what foods are exactly in your fridge? Do you know people throw away 40% of food they buy at store on average? Foodfully appears as a savior to those who don’t want to throw out food because it becomes spoiled in their fridge and helps them reduce food waste.

What is Foodfully and what can it offer?

Foodfully, developed by a company based in Davis, California, is an app that can help users track their food purchase history and record what’s in their fridges and when the food will expire. The app automatically updates users’ grocery purchases and keeps track of the expiration dates. When the food is likely to go bad, the app will send out notifications to remind their users. And when users are trying to cook with those ingredients, the app will show recipes that prioritize the food that will spoil soonest, which saves the users a lot of time. In addition, Foodfully also partners with several grocery stores like Amazon fresh, Kroger, Safeway to connect their grocery shopping and promotions. By reducing waste and getting more discounts, users of Foodfully get to save more money.

The business model of Foodfully

Foodfully provides food tracking and online recipes for its users, reducing the time and effort they’ll need to record what kinds of food they have in the fridge and when the food is going to spoil. For Foodfully’s business model, there are two types of users, namely free-tier users and paid-tier users. Because the app is completely free for free-tier users, Foodfully makes revenue through sponsored cooking and recipes content. They also sell advertisements that can be seen by all its users to companies that serve food-related products. And for its paid-tier users, the app makes money through linking content like purchases and meals selected to health platforms that require food and nutrition accounting, and integrating with fitness wearables.

Efficiency criteria

By the services it offers, Foodfully is able to create joint profitability with its users. Users can use the app to remind themselves what food is going to waste and reduce the chances of wasting money by throwing away spoiled food. Moreover, by looking at the recipes Foodfully provides, users are also able to save time and effort thinking about what dish they can make with those food. In this case, users gain value by saving time and effort; meanwhile, they give value to the company by providing valuable personal information about what food they buy and what kind of dishes they prefer. On the company’s side, foodfully gives value by providing unique services to those who don’t want to waste food, providing accurate personalized recommendation of recipes and advertisements according to the information users provide on the app. The app also gains value by making money through advertisements and sponsored contents.

References

Füller, J., Mühlbacher, H., Matzler, K., & Jawecki, G. (2009). Consumer empowerment through internet-based co-creation. Journal of Management Information Systems, 26(3), 71-102.

McGuire. B. (2016). Automated food tracking – know when your food is going bad and how to cook it. Retrieved from : https://wefunder.com/foodfully on 2017/2/15