WYOMING, Mich. — A trip to the grocery store is costing more and more these days. Now there's a program that takes food from your favorite grocery stores that's days away from expiration and offers them at a discounted price. The app Flashfood offers these deals on groceries and is now expanding its partnership with SpartanNash to offer the service at 44 additional locations across Michigan, Iowa and Nebraska.
“What I learned is grocers, unfortunately, throw out a bunch of food every day. And it's usually three days to a week before the sell-by date," Flashfood founder and CEO Josh Domingues said.
Domingues saw the problem and created Flashfood to reduce food waste and help those wanting to save on groceries. On the app, grocers like Family Fare and VG's Grocery list the items nearing expiration, put them in a specific part of the store and offer them at around 50% off.
“This is perfectly good food, it's usually just extra inventory that the store has that they make available at probably the deepest discount to find in all of America," Domingues said. “You just tell them your name and what you're coming to pick up and they confirm you on the system and they hand you your item.
SpartanNash and Flashfood began their collaboration on the reduced food cost effort back in 2020. This month they expanded that partnership to 44 additional stores, including the Metro Family Fare in Wyoming. Store director Mary Mudler says even though the partnership is new to their location, they're already seeing a lot of interest in everything from produce, to cereal, to meats.
“It varies day to day - could be some extra steaks that were left could be some milk that's coming up close dated," Mudler said.
Flashfood is now in over 200 grocery stores across the state, hoping to ease the burden on your wallet and the environment.
