Melbourne-based anti-food-waste app Yume has launched Yume Wholesale, a closed marketplace that allows primary producers, wholesalers and distributors an alternative avenue to market for high-quality, surplus produce.
The platform facilitates the sale of produce to Yume’s network of restaurants, cafés, grocers and franchise businesses. Yume Wholesale will affiliate The Yume App, a mobile-based application that aims to reduce food waste by providing chefs and restaurants an outlet on which to sell or donate their surplus food.
The launch of the Wholesale platform follows the success of the Yume Hour, a new annual event held as part of the Melbourne Food & Wine Festival, which aims to highlight the issue of food waste. The event, held on March 5, saw 23 of Melbourne’s best chefs offer $1 meals created completely from surplus produce, which were then put on sale via the Yume app: 2,500 people accessed the app within the first 10 minutes, proving that food waste is an issue that resonates.
“The food manufacturing industry accounts for 1.4 million tonnes of food waste every year,” Yume founder Katy Barfield said. “At Yume, we think this just doesn’t make sense. That’s why we’re launching Yume Wholesale, a new closed market for quality surplus produce.
“If you look at the dairy industry as an example, it produces over nine billion litres of milk every year and it’s hard to predict exactly how much milk will be consumed, and it has a short shelf life. Cheese makers, for example, who are making a brie or camembert have to begin the production process before they know how many orders they are going to fulfil. There’s a lot of waste that comes into the system that really is not the fault of anyone, except the market, which moves so dynamically.”
Yume Wholesale aims to leverage the connections built through the consumer-facing Yume app to facilitate the surplus supply of food via an alternative avenue directly to restaurants, grocers, caterers and conference centres. Sellers who use the app must discount their produce by at least 20 per cent off the usual price, but often this figure is higher to ensure a quick sale.
“With Yume Wholesale, everyone wins,” Ms Barfield said. “Chefs get access to great produce at a discounted rate and producers and wholesalers increase their profits by selling stock that may otherwise have been discarded or heavily discounted, without cannibalising their customer base or burning resources for diminishing returns.”
The Yume team is currently looking for restaurants and caterers looking to gain access to Yume’s closed marketplace platform, and for producers, manufacturers, distributors and wholesalers who would like to post products for sale. For more information, contact Hannah Court on 0408 121 719 or Hannah@theyumapp.com.