Increasing amounts of food waste is becoming a problem in developed countries. This research project is about how to reduce food waste by tracking fridge inventory and the best-before date of fridge stored food by a smartphone application. Food waste occurs in several different ways. It can be found in the household, retail stores and in the catering and events sector. Food waste can also be classified as avoidable waste, possibly avoidable waste and unavoidable waste. This project focuses on the household sector and the use of a mobile application to track fridge inventory and best-before date. The purpose of the application is to try to reduce household food waste. There is previous research about reducing household food waste using mobile applications and they all take different approaches. This study focuses on building upon these previous approaches together with data gathered from our own questionnaire with Sweden as primary focus. The combined data results in our own mobile application solution that has been tested by users in Swedish households. The study’s research question is addressed by the use of the application during a period of one-week observation. Our data collection consists of the participants being interviewed at the end of the observation period. The interviews gathered information related to whether the users successfully reduced food wastage in their households.

The thesis is concerned with a basic fact about the issue of food waste in a global level and in the Czech Republic as well. It Describes the overall problem and distinguishes a terminology of food loss, food waste etc. The practical part analyzes the consumption of food consumers via questionnaire in the region of Tabor. The goal was to determine whether the respondents are knowledgeable in this matter another aim was to find out the frequency of their purchase and consumption of food in their homes or how they liquidate the remaining food. The challenge is also to propose the own solution of this problem, because waste represents a complex economic, environmental, social and ethical problem. The final part deals with its own proposals for solutions and it finds out the need to establish food banks in the region of Tabor.