Interview. Mihai Zant (JustNow): How to help retailers cut food waste

Developed by Mihai Zant, the JustNow app promotes the sale of food in an accelerated sales process by mapping the available products.

What need does your startup meet?

JustNow meets retailers’ need for food waste reduction as well as consumers’ need for good deals. Being a marketplace, our startup allows retailers to promote the food due to expire in two to five days, or more, in the accelerated sales process, therefore allowing consumers to find great deals and help prevent food waste. It helps food retailers improve stock management, reduce food waste and related costs, and offers them a smart mobile advertising tool.

What trends does your startup bring to the Romanian retail market?

Trying to prevent food waste is a trend across the EU, as are concern over the environment and promotion of the circular economy. Our business model is positioned one step before food donation, and in the future it will contribute to a centralized method to support donation. Also, JustNow uses Artificial Intelligence to show retailers trends in demand-and-supply information so they can improve inventory and marketing. A second step in the app’s development will be an automatic restocking system for retailers.

Your business model is designed to involve collaboration with retailers and soon you will start testing on the Romanian market with Mega Image. What is the reason behind that?

Our model is based on collaboration with large retailers because they have shown an active interest in reducing food waste. Nevertheless, we invite any food store that wants to use our app to a discussion. Mega Image has expressed interest in testing with us, and for us this is a perfect fit. Its convenience retail business model is very suitable for our approach to consumers. We imagine our customer to be browsing our mobile app looking for deals, and, after finding one in a store nearby, heading to that store to take advantage.