GERMANY : ''TASTY DEALS APPS'' : 1/2

TASTY DEALS :  apps help find unsold food and reduce waste.

BERLIN : After a long day of work, Annekathrin Fiesinger is too tired to consider making dinner at home.

So, the 34-year-old uses her smart phone to check nearby restaurants, hotels or bakeries in Berlin for food being sold for a discount at the end of the day.

The part-time coffee shop worker, who is also studying for a degree in the science of ecosystems, is part of growing movement of environmentally-aware people in Germany and beyond who are using apps to reduce food waste and try to cut down on climate-wrecking carbon emissions.

While it's unclear how big an impact such efforts have in ultimately reducing emissions, they reflect how environmental concerns are growing and shaping the behavior of consumers and businesses.

''For me this is all about the environment,'' says Fiesenger. ''We cannot go on with all this wastefulness.''

Fiesenger uses ''Too Good To Go,'' Europe's most popular app to find discounted unsold food.
It uses her phone's GPS to tell her which registered businesses nearby have extra food for sale, and what they're offering.

''It's super easy. just download the app and, on your way home, pick up what you like best,'' she explained, scrolling through a long list of photos and advertising veggie meals., baked goods and unsold lunch specials.

The app is part of a growing number of services using technology to help reduce food waste.

Activists have built online communities to share food with neighbours before throwing it away.

Startups have teamed up with supermarkets to create applications that alert consumers, when groceries that are about to expire are marked down.

Even the German government has launched a phone app offering recipes by celebrity chefs made specifically for left-over groceries that often get discarded. [AFP]

The honor and serving of the latest operational research on market, services, and unsold food, and  waste, continues.