A simple change in how you approach meals could save you hundreds and reduce food waste. Here’s how.
Inflation’s biting, food prices have skyrocketed, and many South Australian households are struggling to afford their weekly grocery haul.
Luckily, there’s a way to save money without skimping on quality or quantity: reducing food waste.
Enter Saveful, a free app supported by the South Australian Government through Green Industries SA, that’s here to transform how you think about mealtimes, waste, and your wallet.
Why food waste matters
Food waste isn’t just bad for the planet; it’s a massive drain on our finances, costing Australian households around $2500 every year.
South Australians send 200,000 tonnes of food waste to landfill each year, and it makes up 22 per cent of total household waste collected at kerbside by weight.
The worst thing is that 70 per cent of the food we throw away is still perfectly edible – money literally going in the bin.
Kim McDonnell, CEO of Saveful, says the best way to reduce food waste is to make the most of what you already have.
“None of us buys food intending to waste it, but the reality is most of us underestimate how much we throw away.”
Waste also has an environmental cost. Food rotting in landfills produces methane, a potent greenhouse gas.
“Saving food at home is one of the simplest and most powerful things we can do to fight climate change,” says Kim. “It’s not just about reducing waste – it’s about creating a better future for all of us.”
Smarter mealtime solutions
Saveful isn’t your average recipe app. It’s a smart tool designed to help you make the most of what’s already in your fridge, freezer, or pantry.
Simply input your ingredients – be it a lone zucchini, some eggs, or a packet of frozen peas – and the app suggests meal options tailored to what’s on hand. All recipes are created by Australian chefs, so you know they’ll taste great.
“We all have those half-used jars of sauce or one lonely lemon sitting in the fridge,” Kim says. “Saveful shows you how to make the most of them, so you don’t need to go out and buy more.”
It’s also handy for planning your grocery shop to make the most of weekly specials: “There are those veggies like zucchinis and eggplants that are often cheaper than other vegetables, but not everyone knows how to use them in ways their families will enjoy,” says Kim. “Saveful can show you creative ways to turn those into delicious meals.”
Key Features of Saveful
- Recipes searchable by ingredient: Whether you’ve got one or 12 leftovers to use up, just enter them all into the app for smart recipe suggestions that work.
- Seasonal shopping tips: Discover what’s in season, saving money on your grocery shop while supporting local farmers.
- Flexible recipes: Swap ingredients easily to match what you have at home.
- Personalised meals: Adapt recipes to your taste and dietary needs, ensuring no food goes to waste.
- Track your impact: Saveful’s personalised dashboard lets you track your savings and environmental impact, making sustainable living both simple and rewarding.
- Farm facts: Get educated about where your food comes from and the people who grow it.
The best feature of Saveful? It lightens your mental load by making meal planning simple (and cheaper!): “The biggest pain-in-the-neck question we all have to answer daily is, ‘What’s for dinner tonight?’”
“We spend at least 20 minutes a day thinking about it, and that’s led to 80 per cent of people either hating cooking or feeling lukewarm about it. Saveful is about being practical and making mealtimes less stressful.”
From corporate success to social impact
After a successful career in advertising, including co-founding an award-winning marketing agency, Kim had a revelation: she didn’t want to spend her life convincing people to buy things they didn’t need.
“One day, I realised I wanted my work to have meaning,” Kim says. “I wanted to use my skills to make the world better, not just sell products.”
She sold everything – the family house, the holiday house, the car, and the business – and relocated her family to New York to launch Thankful, a global social impact initiative that uses the powerful psychological impact of gratitude to build a better world. During her time living in New York, Kim had the privilege of presenting at the United Nations.
Following Australia’s devastating droughts and bushfires, Kim returned home to support rural communities. Under her leadership, Thankful launched Thankful for Farmers in Australia in 2019 and has funded drought resilience programs, collaborated on health and wellbeing resources for farmers, and produced documentaries highlighting sustainable farming practices. Through the work of Thankful for Farmers and working across the food supply chain from farm gate to dinner plate, Saveful was created.
A life of purpose
Trading a steady nine to five and a comfortable salary for round-the-clock hard work for a good cause hasn’t always been easy: “Ten years later, we still don’t own anything. It’s tough, but knowing we’re making a positive impact makes it all worthwhile.”
“I’ve learned to look at my wealth not by how much money is in the bank – because that would be depressing – but by the impact we’re having. Through that lens, I feel incredibly rich.”
Since its launch a year ago, Saveful has attracted over 27,000 users, helping divert 1,500kg of food from waste and potentially reducing around 2,960kg of CO₂ emissions.
Building a sustainable future for SA
Kim says that Saveful is a powerful way to support our local food producers along with the environment.
“Our hard-working farmers aren’t just the backbone of our food system – they’re also frontline environmentalists, helping to fight climate change with sustainable farming practices.”
“When you shop seasonally and make the most of what you buy, you’re helping reduce the strain on food supply chains and cutting down on waste that ends up in landfills,” she says.
Saveful’s farm facts help users connect with where their food comes from and why seasonal shopping matters. “The closer you feel to the men and women growing your food, the more you value it,” says Kim. “It’s about creating that connection between the farm gate and the dinner plate.”
“When you understand that a tomato takes six months to grow, you start valuing it more. Knowing the effort that goes into producing our food makes us less likely to waste it.”
Saveful is supported by the South Australian Government through Green Industries SA – one of the ways our state is aiming to halve food waste by 2030.
And Green Industries SA reminds us that any food waste or scraps we’re left with can be recycled into compost via our green bins, helping us to grow more food here in SA.
Saveful is free to download on the App Store and Google Play.
