Quarterly Publication - Ed. 02-May6 - Flipbook - Page 18
FLASHFOOD:
ELIMINATING FOOD
WASTE, CREATING
A BETTER WORLD FOR
FUTURE GENERATIONS
Josh Domingues (Next Founders, 2018),
Founder and CEO of FlashFood
A
fter developing his rigour in competitive
hockey as a kid and eventually as a CHL player,
Josh went to Saint Mary’s University and
applied his rigour to business management.
Josh and his co-founding team spent their
careers in a variety of industries: management consulting,
finance, and emerging technology. Then, they decided it
was time to do something different - something that would
create a better world for future generations. That’s when
they founded Flashfood. In recent years, Josh has spoken
at RetailTO, pitched on Dragon’s Den and been recognized
by a variety of food publications such as The Shelby Report,
Canadian Food Business and The Packer.
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WHY TACKLE THE GLOBAL PROBLEM OF FOOD
WASTE?
At Flashfood, we're working on reducing food
waste while providing more affordable food to
consumers who need it. The environmental impact
of food waste is one of the leading causes of
greenhouse gas emissions and is unsustainable
for future generations. Additionally, we're seeing
a huge number of loyal users who are saving so
much money on their grocery bill through
Flashfood and in many instances, that's
transformational for these families so, we’re also providing a financial
solution for individuals.
We're really fortunate that our business model
is one in which we're able to do good and drive
revenue. In our value generation, we're allowing
our users to save money, our grocer partners to
reduce food waste and collectively reduce the
environmental impact of food waste.
WHY SHOULD OTHER FOUNDERS THINK
ABOUT CREATING A MEANINGFUL SOCIAL
IMPACT?
Every decision we make, not only as startups,
but as people, needs to be from a sustainable
perspective. Life isn't possible if the world
melts. So to me, there is no proxy for thinking any other way.
HOW ARE YOU PROVIDING AN
INNOVATIVE SOLUTION TO FOOD
SURPLUS AND WASTE?
PROBLEM
Food surplus and resulting waste from
food retailers
SOLUTION
Flashfood: Partners with grocery chains
to enable them to sell surplus food through the Flashfood app at significant
discounts for its users while reducing
store-level food waste.
IMPACT
Flashfood employs nearly 50 people and
has big ambitions to become the bestin-class food waste reduction solution
across the globe.
We're working on everything that
we can to put us at the forefront of
grocery shopping innovation. One of
the biggest innovations we'll enable in
the coming years is curated dynamic
pricing on items that will nearly guarantee a sale, while providing users
with the most useful deals for them.
HOW DO YOU BALANCE IMPACT
WITH PROFITABILITY?
CONSIDERING THE CURRENT CLIMATE,
WHERE IS YOUR VENTURE GROWTHWISE TODAY?
The environmental
impact of food waste
is one of the leading
causes of greenhouse
gas emissions and is
unsustainable for
future generations.
The foundation of our business
is to reduce food waste. Initially, I
thought this would be the main driver
for our users to use the app, but what
we've seen is a huge number of families that have a
hard time affording healthy food for their children.
Our financial impact on these families means that
their kids are now able to eat healthy food much
more often. The trickle-down effects of children
who have access to healthy food versus unhealthy
packaged food is life-changing.
Given the world changing recently
with COVID-19, our business has certainly been affected. We've had to delay hiring plans, readjust our forecast
for the year and be more cognizant of
our costs. In lieu of these things in the
short term, we're very well-positioned
as a company because we're helping
grocers reduce their food waste which
is more valuable now more than ever
before and also helping consumers save
tons of money.
For us, COVID-19 will likely expedite
our growth over the next 12 months and
it's our responsibility to help as many people to
save money on their grocery bill as we can. Our
mission is more important now than ever before.
LEARN MORE
ABOUT FLASHFOOD
GRIT
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