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  1. Technology
August 6, 2013

Track down leftover meals with phone app

Never waste food again with new app.

By Ben Sullivan

A new app launching worldwide next week is letting strangers finish off each other’s meals.

LeftoverSwap lets users ‘check in’ and browse the local vicinity for culinary offerings.

From that half-eaten kebab to the bottom of the soup pot, it’s ‘anything goes’ on LeftoverSwap.

Once you find your meal, get in touch via the app and arrange to pick up your doggy bag. The team behind the idea believe it could help fight food poverty.

LeftoverSwap

Creator Dan Newman, 25, said: "It started out as a joke three years ago. My friend and I had a bunch of leftover pizza and we said how great it would be if someone could just finish it off for us.

"Early this year we remembered it in passing, and for some reason it seemed so much more plausible in 2013. So we started doing it in our free time, which would take a while because building an app is amazingly complicated. But the feedback we’ve had has been great – people seem really into it – so we decided to give this a proper shot."

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Mr Newman, a finance reporter from Seattle, said: "When you first think of leftovers, you think of soggy bits on a plate. It doesn’t have to be that – it could be cans you don’t want.

"Like in the UK, we have millions of people suffering from food poverty in the States. There were 20 million in 2008, now there are 40 million.

"But still, to be honest, if someone cut a sandwich in half, I would happily take the other half."

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