A team headed by Taiwanese entrepreneur Ho Wen-hsin (何文馨) has launched a mobile application to help reduce food waste and facilitate direct orders between restaurants and wholesalers.
The impetus was to find a new purchasing method for traditional eateries and make the purchase information transparent for producers, wholesalers and restaurants, which would increase their efficiency when deciding what to order, Ho told the Central News Agency in an interview published on Sunday.
However, a lack of funding meant the team found it difficult to land a big client, so it began by offering the app to vendors in traditional markets and customizing it to meet their needs, she said.
Photo: CNA / courtesy of Ho Wen-hsin
Their first client was a tofu maker in Yilan County, who had more than 200 customers placing daily orders, but the owner had to personally visit every customer to take orders, quote prices and manage the accounts, she said.
We won the client over by providing a semi-automated system that could take orders and handle an accounting system, which greatly improved the tofu shop’s efficiency, she said.
Team members were surprised to learn that many breakfast shops still used traditional methods such as cashiers to handle client payments, so they promoted the system as a much-needed digital secretary, she said.
By first targeting providers, the team was later able to win over the restaurants that were buying from those providers, she said.
The team has updated its app to include a service that allows restaurateurs to see what is offered by other suppliers and the prices, allowing them to diversify their food sources, Ho said.
The team’s system is based on hand-held device applications, and it is more mobile and practical than the customized added-value services that are part of the Enterprise Resource Planning system used in the hotel industry, which requires a desktop computer to run, she said.
The team’s next step is to place providers and restaurants on the same platform, which would help providers see what produce and food items are needed, which could help them reduce over-production of certain items, which thereby reducing food waste, she said.
The team is looking forward to providing more services aimed at reducing the nation’s food waste problem by becoing a registered company, Ho said.
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