ResQ Club is a virtual marketplace where restaurants can sell their leftovers for a discounted price to hungry consumers.

ResQ Club is a win-win for restaurants and consumers. The app provides a platform for restaurants, cafes, and grocery stores to sell their leftover food after close of business for 50% of the original price. Meanwhile, consumers get access to quality food that is both significantly more affordable and often conveniently ready to eat. Each meal sold generates more direct revenue and cuts costs of waste management for businesses in the hospitality industry, while also diverting food from waste streams, where it might be landfilled or incinerated.

Using an interactive map function, hungry consumers are able to locate participating food retailers nearby. The food on offer might range from cooked meals, snacks, or even bags of discounted groceries. To facilitate smooth transactions, all orders and payments are conducted through the app.

ResQ Club is currently up and running in around 45 cities across Finland, Sweden and Germany. The company estimates that their platform, which involves over 1000 businesses, saves more than 67,000 portions of perfectly good food from waste streams each month, saving roughly 167 tonnes of CO2 emissions.

Why you should care

More than 88 million tonnes of food is wasted annually in the EU alone, equal to 173 kilograms per person. Around 12% of this waste is created from the food service industry. Meanwhile, in 2014 almost 10% of Europeans were unable to access a nutritious meal every day. The ResQ Club app can help bridge the gap between excessive waste and demand for affordable food.

How the Global Goals are addressed

Zero hunger
Selling surplus groceries and portions of cooked food at a reduced price can make nutritious food more accessible to low-income earners.

Responsible consumption and production
Platforms to sell excess produce such as ResQ Club have the potential to reduce waste from the food retailing and catering sector.

Climate action
According to the FAO, food waste accounts for around 8% of our global greenhouse gas emissions. Cutting food waste can help curb emissions contributing to global warming.