THE world-first award-winning Gander app, created to reduce food waste, has transformed the spending habits of Northern Ireland shoppers with a significant soar in downloads and increased sales of yellow stickered foods since its launch last August.
More than 41,000 downloads have taken place in the last four months, placing it in the top 12 per cent of apps nationally, its founders claim. with up to 45 per cent more reduced-price food being sold and therefore kept from going to waste.
The improvements mean that stores on average are selling between 85 and100 per cent of their reduced product shown on Gander, with yellow-stickered items selling 40 per cent quicker since the introduction of the app.
One of the app’s founders Ashley Osborne says: “The traction and growth of Gander has been amazing. We had expected a decent level of interest, but never envisaged the degree of downloads - especially when only trialled in Northern Ireland initially.
“The level of positive buy-in demonstrated by customers and retailers alike has been phenomenal and testament that Gander’s proposition is a great fit for consumers out there.
“Customer feedback has been incredibly supportive and the interest in high quality reduced food is impressive, now that they can actually see what is available whereas previously you would have to go to the store and hope to find something reduced.
“Plus, shoppers are feeling empowered thanks to Gander, aiding them to be more sustainable in their shopping choices. This supports the app’s endeavour to decrease and prevent food waste and create a more sustainable environment has also proved highly effective.”
He adds: “All in all this has led to not only a substantial reduction in surplus and waste, but an increase in overall sales of reduced items, with up to an 800 per cent return on investment for a retailer using Gander.”
Gander launched initially by integrating with Henderson Technologies award winning EDGEPos system to display all of the yellow stickered produce from their stores in real time. It went live in 310 participating Spar, Eurospar, Vivo and VivoXtra stores.
It has since attracted huge interest from additional retailers, many of whom will be rolling out with Gander (which can be downloaded via Apple or Android app stores) in the coming months across Britain and Ireland.
