Advertisement
Environment

New app Karma brings food waste battle to UK

The Swedish start-up sensation is coming to Britain in attempt to slash the 10 million tonnes of food binned every year with 50 eateries already signed up

A new app could eat into London’s food waste problem by offering a 50 per cent discount in restaurants, cafés and grocery stores.

Karma has taken over Sweden since launching in 2016, with more than 250,000 users and 1,000 businesses signed up across 35 towns and cities. Now the tech firm is serving up the app to Londoners with more than 50 restaurants already on the menu, including Michelin-starred Aquavit, nine locations from French bistro Aubaine and Arket, the in-store restaurant for H&M’s latest concept store.

Magpie, the new restaurant from the team behind Hackney’s Michelin-starred Pidgin, is also on board while Wagamama founder Alan Yau OBE’s Yamabache has signed up to the service too at launch.

Other trendy restaurants offering up grub include vegetarian train Tibits, Essence Cuisine, Calcutta Street, Hummus Bros and Detox Kitchen.

Eateries upload surplus food, allowing hungry users to place an order and pick up the grub as a takeaway. It’s predicted Karma could help slash the UK’s 10 million tonnes of food binned every year, and help restaurants reach new customers.

The food app joins the likes of the Real Junk Food Project in its mission to reduce the levels of waste that have seem a third of all food produced globally being unnecessarily thrown away.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Karma co-founder Elsa Bernadotte said:“We are super excited to be live in London and that we already have these fantastic restaurants joining as our exclusive launching partners. The interest has been fantastic from day one and with Londoners being environmentally conscious, great foodies and highly digital in their food shopping, we think it’s a perfect match for a solution like Karma.”

Advertisement

Change a vendor's life this Christmas

This Christmas, 3.8 million people across the UK will be facing extreme poverty. Thousands of those struggling will turn to selling the Big Issue as a vital source of income - they need your support to earn and lift themselves out of poverty.

Recommended for you

Read All
'We'll have to get more militant': The real winners and losers from the farm inheritance tax debate
a tractor in a field
Farming

'We'll have to get more militant': The real winners and losers from the farm inheritance tax debate

Farming is the country's least diverse industry. Meet the man on a mission to change it
Farming

Farming is the country's least diverse industry. Meet the man on a mission to change it

Keir Starmer's COP 29 climate goals 'encouraging' – but 'serious action' needed now, experts say 
Prime Minister Keir Starmer attends COP29 in Azerbaijan
COP29

Keir Starmer's COP 29 climate goals 'encouraging' – but 'serious action' needed now, experts say 

Where has all the fog gone?
Nature

Where has all the fog gone?

Most Popular

Read All
Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits
Renters: A mortgage lender's window advertising buy-to-let products
1.

Renters pay their landlords' buy-to-let mortgages, so they should get a share of the profits

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal
Pound coins on a piece of paper with disability living allowancve
2.

Exclusive: Disabled people are 'set up to fail' by the DWP in target-driven disability benefits system, whistleblowers reveal

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over
next dwp cost of living payment 2023
3.

Cost of living payment 2024: Where to get help now the scheme is over

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue
4.

Citroën Ami: the tiny electric vehicle driving change with The Big Issue