Electronic tags nudge people to avoid food waste

No matter how much we try to avoid it, we have all had the experience of finding food at the back of the fridge that spoiled before we could eat it. In fact, it is estimated that, each year, around 6.6 million tonnes of food are wasted this way in the UK alone. That equates to £10.2 billion (€12.3 billion). Now, startup Tugiba has proposed a solution with connected devices that remind users when the food in their fridge is about to go out of date.

Tugiba’s Nudge Tag system has two parts – a cloud-connected ‘Puck’, and electronic ‘Tags’that are connected to the Puck. The Puck is hung on the front of the refrigerator door, while the Tags are clipped to individual foods or packets. When the user places a food item in the fridge, they twist a dial on the Puck to indicate how many days are left before the food item expires. They then press a Bluetooth pairing button on a Tag, and hold that Tag near the Puck. The devices connect and the Tag uploads the expiration data.

After this, whenever the fridge door is opened, the Puck wirelessly triggers all of the active Tags inside to light up in one of three colours – green for food that has a lot of time left before expiration, yellow for food that should be used soon, and red for expired foods. Users are instantly alerted to what needs to be eaten first.

Springwise