Cleveland-based Giant Eagle will expand Flashfood to 140 more stores after diverting 430,000 pounds of food and saving shoppers thousands of dollars in its first year of the program.
This expansion is expected to provide consumers with steep grocery discounts and reduce 1 million pounds of food waste by the end of 2022, according to a news release.
Flashfood is a digital marketplace that provides customers access to heavily discounted food nearing its best-by date to all of its 173 corporate Giant Eagle and Giant Eagle Market District stores. Starting in Cleveland, the 140-store expansion will roll out throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania and will be complete by end of October.
Since Giant Eagle first introduced the Flashfood program at 34 store locations in 2021, more than 430,000 pounds of food waste have been diverted from landfills, according to the release. This equates to nearly 159,102 meals that fed families rather than being thrown away and about 834,335 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions saved from entering the atmosphere.
“Our partnership with Flashfood has not only helped us in our mission to reduce food waste, but it has helped us better serve our guests and their families by offering more value-focused grocery options,” Dan Donovan of Giant Eagle said in the release. “With the success we’ve seen so far, it was a natural next step to expand the program to all our corporate supermarket locations to offer more guests access to this savings opportunity while making an even bigger impact on the environment.”
The Flashfood app enables people to browse deals — directly from their phone or computer — on fresh food, such as meat, produce boxes, dairy and bakery items, as well as center-store foods and snacks that are nearing best-by dates. Purchases are made directly through the app and consumers then pick up their orders from the Flashfood zone located inside their participating Giant Eagle or Market District location.
Regular Flashfood shoppers save an average of $96 per month on grocery bills, according to the release.
Flashfood locations are available flashfood.com/locations/home.
“Our expanded partnership with Giant Eagle couldn’t come at a more critical time,” Flashfood Founder and CEO Josh Domingues said in the release. “With inflation causing grocery prices to soar, the 140-store expansion will increase our ability to feed more families affordably and reduce the amount of food reaching the landfill four-fold. It is a big win for both Ohio and Pennsylvania shoppers and the planet.”
Flashfood’s mobile app operates in more than 1,210 grocery locations throughout the U.S. and Canada. To date, Flashfood has diverted more than 40 million pounds of food, saved shoppers over $100 million and more affordably fed hundreds of thousands of families, according to the release. Flashfood works with The Giant Co., Meijer, Tops Friendly Markets, SpartanNash, Giant Eagle, Price Rite, Giant Food and Stop & Shop. Flashfood is a free app available on iOS and Android. For more information, visit www.flashfood.com.
Giant Eagle has more than 470 stores throughout western Pennsylvania, Ohio, northern West Virginia, Maryland and Indiana.