New approach to cutting down expired food could save you money
Jan 7, 2025, 10:46 PM
SALT LAKE CITY — Way too much of what gets purchased at grocery stores ends up in landfills. Nick Bertram, for one, was worn down by all that food waste.
“I was sick of throwing things away,” Bertram said.
In a previous career, Bertram managed grocery stores where he says truckloads of merchandise often got tossed out for what seemed to him to be silly reasons. “If you think about food just because it’s nearing its best before date or just because there’s a slight imperfection on the skin of it or whatever else, it’s still edible,” Bertram said. “It’s still nutritious. It’s still wonderful.”
Expiration date dilemma
Indeed, last year the KSL Investigators demonstrated how those so-called expiration dates have nothing to do with whether food is safe to eat.
“It’s hard to know what to throw out and what not to throw out,” Kristina Enz said as she looked through the food stored in her fridge and cupboards.
Grocery prices have climbed 30% since 2019 and the USDA expects prices to climb by nearly 2% more in 2025. Not helping matters is Americans typically throw out 30% to 40% of their food every year – much of which is still safe to eat. (FILE, KSL TV)
Often, the expiration dates printed on food labels are about when the item will be at its peak taste and quality says Palak Gupta, an assistant professor in Utah State University’s Department of Nutrition, Dietetics and Food Science.
“You would be surprised how much food is getting thrown out just because consumers don’t know it’s still safe to eat,” Gupta said.
Expired foods are not always safe. Rotten meat, lumpy milk, moldy apples, moldy bread, and other old foods can make you sick absolutely.
Enter Flashfood
It inspired an idea. Can technology take the food items that are about to go bad and get them into the hands and stomachs of hungry consumers? Enter Flashfood.
“Flashfood is an app that actually takes food that’s nearing its best-by date or is in surplus. A grocery store takes it puts it in a marketplace so that consumers can buy it up to half-price off,” said Bertram, who is the CEO and President of Flashfood.
Flashfood says users can save up to 50% off retail prices by using their app. The KSL Investigators fared better – we saved just shy of 64%. (Zachary Pope, KSL TV)
My producer Sloan Schrage and I decided to put the app to the test. Indeed, we found all sorts of soon-to-expire items available for sale at stores in our area. We’re talking about meats, sushi, poultry, chips, and even a $5 box of various fruits and vegetables.
Some of the savings were eye-popping – less than half on some items. We filled up our Foodflash cart for a total of $25.69 worth of groceries. Those same items would have cost us a total of $71.04 had we paid the full retail price.
Is the food worth eating?
Big savings, sure, but is the food any good?
Well, the items we bought turned out fine, mostly. The meats were all use-or-lose by the end of that day or the next. The bananas could have used a couple more days to yellow – they were all very green. But the real test? The avocados – which we all know to ripen at the speed of regret – turned out to be a tad overripe but not horrible.
Consumer in the United States waste an estimated 30% to 40% of their food supply, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which is roughly 92 billion pounds of food every year. This amounts to 145 billion meals and over $473 billion worth of food.
“If we’re being honest, there’s a really dumb problem where we have a lot of food waste,” said Bertram.
Flashfood says they’ve done well in Canada and are now expanding into Utah. They’re hoping to partner with other grocers to continue their expansion.
