Flashfood, an app that provides people access to discounted food close to its best-by date, announced Tuesday that independently owned grocery stores are now on the app, enabling a larger number of shoppers to buy budget-friendly groceries.
This is a notable move for the company, as small and independently owned grocery stores play a crucial role for communities in rural and urban areas where low-income families live. With rising grocery prices, not everyone can afford fresh produce, so Flashfood’s expansion aims to help these customers save money. To date, the company says it has helped customers save around $280 million in groceries, according to its website.
Flashfood, which launched in 2016, has previously only partnered with bigger supermarket chains including Meijer, Price Rite Marketplace, Stop & Shop and Save A Lot. Now, Flashfood has added more than 10 independent stores across the U.S. and Canada, such as Green Top Grocery in Bloomington, Illinois; Country Squire Foods in Chicago Heights, Illinois; Supermercado Mexico in Wyoming, Minnesota; Supermarket in Burlington, Ontario; and more. It plans to add more than 100 independent grocers by the end of this year.
In addition to helping shoppers save money, the new offering will likely benefit local businesses by helping reduce food waste — a serious problem in the U.S. An average of 92 billion pounds of food gets wasted in the U.S. every year, as reported by the nonprofit organization Feeding America. According to Flashfood’s annual impact report, it prevented 37 million pounds of food from going to landfills in 2023 alone and a total of over 100 million pounds of food since the app launched.
Flashfood’s app lets independent grocers onboard their catalog of products, which is taken from their existing inventory management software or manually added by store owners. Flashfood’s app automatically chooses items on shelves nearing their best-by date and notifies customers of the newest deals. Food that would normally go to a landfill, which results in lost revenue for the grocery store, can now be sold to shoppers at discounts of up to 50% off.
“The already harsh and competitive retail climate right now is particularly difficult for independent grocers, who face unique challenges as small businesses,” Flashfood CEO Nicholas Bertram said in a statement. “Our goal with this launch is to offer a supporting lifeline to these businesses, many of whom solve food access challenge issues in hyper-urban or rural areas. Our hope is to empower these grocers with a solution that brings more shoppers in-store and puts money back in their bottom line.”
The company is also planning an international expansion to tackle food waste around the world, Bertram told TechCrunch.
To date, Flashfood touts more than 4.5 million app downloads. It raised a $12.3 million Series A in 2022.