Our story: building an app for food waste that actually worked (and made us cook more)
It started with a potato.
Not a metaphor, an actual potato. Forgotten in the fridge, softening slowly next to a wilting beet roots and leek. It wasn’t the first. Or the last. Like most people, we didn’t set out to waste food. But somehow, it kept happening. A little here, a little there. Until the trash was full of good intentions gone bad.
That’s the problem. Food waste doesn’t feel like a problem. It happens quietly, invisibly. A bag of salad here. Half a jar of tahini there. An extra portion that nobody eats. A fridge item bought with optimism and forgotten in the back. Over time, it adds up. In the EU alone, households throw away 32 million tonnes of food every year — more than restaurants, supermarkets, or farms. That’s 54% of all food waste. It’s the equivalent of tossing 1 in every 5 grocery bags straight in the bin. And it costs each person €500–€1300 a year, often without them even realising it.
We care. Most people do. In fact, 76% of Europeans say they feel personally responsible for reducing food waste. But care isn’t the problem. It’s that the tools we’ve been given don’t match how we actually live. They’re built for meal prep perfectionists or diet tracking, not messy Tuesday nights and “I thought you were cooking” moments. They assume you’ll know what’s in your fridge, what’s about to expire, and what you’ll feel like eating four days from now.
So we built OH, a potato!
An AI-native app that helps households waste less food without making life harder. It scans your fridge and receipts. Imports any recipe from TikTok, Pinterest, cookbooks, or Notes. Suggests what to cook based on what you already have and what’s running out of time. Sends reminders before things go bad. Replans when life gets in the way. And celebrates every small win with your evolving pet Potato.
It’s not just about recipes. It’s about making food-saving automatic, intuitive, and a little bit fun. You cook. Potato keeps track. You skip a meal. Potato adjusts. You buy kale for one recipe, and Potato reminds you how to use the rest. It adapts to your household’s habits, cravings, and actual schedules — not the idealized version.
We believe better systems — not more guilt — will solve this. That food-saving should feel doable, not like homework. That tools should adapt to people, not the other way around.
30,000+ households use Potato. We’ve been featured by Apple in 32 countries and hit #1 on Product Hunt. We’ve helped rescue over 600,000 ingredients from being wasted. And we’re just getting started.
Because that potato in the fridge? It could still become dinner. Or soup. Or something weird and delicious. We’re here to help make that happen — one meal, one household, one small win at a time.
So yeah. It started with one mushy potato.
And it turned into this.
Join the zero-waste movement and download the app.
Dalma & Radu
© 2025 The Zero-Waste Company SRL. All rights reserved. CIF: 47967009, Reg. Com. J26/587/2023
Our story: building an app for food waste that actually worked (and made us cook more)
It started with a potato.
Not a metaphor, an actual potato. Forgotten in the fridge, softening slowly next to a wilting beet roots and leek. It wasn’t the first. Or the last. Like most people, we didn’t set out to waste food. But somehow, it kept happening. A little here, a little there. Until the trash was full of good intentions gone bad.
That’s the problem. Food waste doesn’t feel like a problem. It happens quietly, invisibly. A bag of salad here. Half a jar of tahini there. An extra portion that nobody eats. A fridge item bought with optimism and forgotten in the back. Over time, it adds up. In the EU alone, households throw away 32 million tonnes of food every year — more than restaurants, supermarkets, or farms. That’s 54% of all food waste. It’s the equivalent of tossing 1 in every 5 grocery bags straight in the bin. And it costs each person €500–€1300 a year, often without them even realising it.
We care. Most people do. In fact, 76% of Europeans say they feel personally responsible for reducing food waste. But care isn’t the problem. It’s that the tools we’ve been given don’t match how we actually live. They’re built for meal prep perfectionists or diet tracking, not messy Tuesday nights and “I thought you were cooking” moments. They assume you’ll know what’s in your fridge, what’s about to expire, and what you’ll feel like eating four days from now.
So we built OH, a potato!
An AI-native app that helps households waste less food without making life harder. It scans your fridge and receipts. Imports any recipe from TikTok, Pinterest, cookbooks, or Notes. Suggests what to cook based on what you already have and what’s running out of time. Sends reminders before things go bad. Replans when life gets in the way. And celebrates every small win with your evolving pet Potato.
It’s not just about recipes. It’s about making food-saving automatic, intuitive, and a little bit fun. You cook. Potato keeps track. You skip a meal. Potato adjusts. You buy kale for one recipe, and Potato reminds you how to use the rest. It adapts to your household’s habits, cravings, and actual schedules — not the idealized version.
We believe better systems — not more guilt — will solve this. That food-saving should feel doable, not like homework. That tools should adapt to people, not the other way around.
30,000+ households use Potato. We’ve been featured by Apple in 32 countries and hit #1 on Product Hunt. We’ve helped rescue over 600,000 ingredients from being wasted. And we’re just getting started.
Because that potato in the fridge? It could still become dinner. Or soup. Or something weird and delicious. We’re here to help make that happen — one meal, one household, one small win at a time.
So yeah. It started with one mushy potato.
And it turned into this.
Join the zero-waste movement and download the app.
Dalma & Radu
© 2025 The Zero-Waste Company SRL. All rights reserved. CIF: 47967009, Reg. Com. J26/587/2023