Latest / Best of Business / Michal Garvey: Foodprint founder unveils 'Mystery Bags' designed to help consumers and hospitality sector

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Michal Garvey: Foodprint founder unveils 'Mystery Bags' designed to help consumers and hospitality sector · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk sed B.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hospitality businesses are struggling, consumers are feeling the pinch with
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: the cost of living, and food waste is a huge problem. Well,
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  Speaker 2: my next guest has come up with a unique way
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  Speaker 2: to battle all three. Enter the Mystery Bag. They are
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  Speaker 2: the new creation by food Print founder Michael Garvey. Food
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  Speaker 2: Print is an app that partners with local eateies to
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  Speaker 2: sell their leftover food at a discounted prices. You probably
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  Speaker 2: are using them, and mystery Bags are their new offering
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  Speaker 2: to further help both hospitality and consumers. And Michael is
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  Speaker 2: with me. Now, good morning, it's MARII I Francisca. Thanks
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  Speaker 2: for having me. How did mystery Bags come about?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is something we've been sort of testing
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  Speaker 3: with our audience for a while. The idea of a
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  Speaker 3: mystery bag something that's been going a little bit viral
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  Speaker 3: over on the old TikTok recently, Okay, and we wanted
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  Speaker 3: to find a way of really simplifying our platform that's
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  Speaker 3: already really easy to use, but making it even easier
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  Speaker 3: for eating, allowing consumers to kind of add a little
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  Speaker 3: bit of fun and sustainability into their ability to eat
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  Speaker 3: out during this cost of living and climate crisis.
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  Speaker 2: Okay, so what are they what's on offer?
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  Speaker 3: Yes, so basically, as you said in the intro, food
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  Speaker 3: Print partners with eateries and when they've got surplus food,
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  Speaker 3: they need to find a way of selling it, and
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  Speaker 3: food Print is a solution there. But things can sell,
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  Speaker 3: things can change really quickly in a hospitality business, and
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  Speaker 3: so the idea of a mystery bag allows the eateries
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  Speaker 3: to put something up and it really is a mystery,
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  Speaker 3: So no two bags are going to be the same.
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  Speaker 3: You usually expect to find around two between two to
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  Speaker 3: four items in there, you know, and one day it
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  Speaker 3: might be a salad and a muffin, the next day
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  Speaker 3: it might be a pie and a sausage roll, you know.
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  Speaker 3: And so you get that real sort of unboxing experience
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  Speaker 3: with your food items every.
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  Speaker 2: Day, like going back to school and opening the lunch
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  Speaker 2: box and seeing what Mum's put in there for you exactly.
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  Speaker 2: But I think it'll probably be more enjoyable. Is this
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  Speaker 2: something that the businesses have been really happy to jump
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  Speaker 2: on board or have they been asking you for something
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  Speaker 2: like this.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely so. As I said, it really simplifies the
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  Speaker 3: platform for the eateies and it just is a really
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  Speaker 3: fun way for them to use it. And yeah, consumers
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  Speaker 3: are also loving it in the testing that we've been doing.
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  Speaker 2: So you make your purchase online and then you pop
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  Speaker 2: in and you pick up the food exactly, do you
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  Speaker 2: think that they'll take a look at the customer coming
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  Speaker 2: and going, oh, I know them, they're like this bag
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  Speaker 2: or they're like, I mean, it'll be interesting I see
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  Speaker 2: what some of the times they do.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, yes, and sometimes the eatery might even give you
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  Speaker 3: a bit of a bit of a choice, depending on
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  Speaker 3: what they've got and how things are going on their day.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, what are you hearing from the hospitality industry in
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  Speaker 2: terms of where business is at?
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  Speaker 3: Look, I don't think I need to tell you or
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  Speaker 3: your listeners that business is tough right now. You know, anecdotically,
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  Speaker 3: some of the businesses are telling us that they're down
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  Speaker 3: sort of twenty percent on what they would have expected
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  Speaker 3: or on last year. And obviously consumers are also feeling
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  Speaker 3: the pinch at the moment. And so for those businesses
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  Speaker 3: using food print as a way for those back cap
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  Speaker 3: days when things don't go to plan. It's really beneficial
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  Speaker 3: for them to be able to retain that value in
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  Speaker 3: that food while also not allowing their food to go
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  Speaker 3: to waste. You're not as devastating seeing food go to waste.
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  Speaker 3: And it also has you know, it's got those monetary
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  Speaker 3: implications for the business, but it also has a huge
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  Speaker 3: implication on the climate crisis. And yeah, for the businesses,
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  Speaker 3: it's also a great marketing opportunity. You know, we also
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  Speaker 3: hear that food Print brings in new customers that they've
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  Speaker 3: never seen before. So again, in that kind of in
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  Speaker 3: this tight time, this you know, tight economic situation that
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  Speaker 3: we have at the moment, it's really great for them
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  Speaker 3: to be able to get their name out there to
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  Speaker 3: a few more people.
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  Speaker 2: Really positive thing, fixing lots of problems, food waste, the
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  Speaker 2: declining hospitality sector, and our shrinking wallets, you know, making
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  Speaker 2: it affordable. I can't quite believe it was twenty nineteen
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  Speaker 2: when you launched food Print and came in here to
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: talk to me about it. How time flies. Absolutely, it
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  Speaker 2: was like feels like just the other day. How have
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  Speaker 2: the last five years gone.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's been a roller coaster, as it has been
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  Speaker 3: for everyone, but no, it has been fantastic and I
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  Speaker 3: am so grateful that I get to do what I
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  Speaker 3: do every day and help support other businesses across the country.
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  Speaker 3: We have grown food Print to several different regions around
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  Speaker 3: the country, so you can now use the app between
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  Speaker 3: Auckland and Dunedin and we're continuing to grow into other
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  Speaker 3: regions throughout the rest of the year as well. So
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  Speaker 3: keeping an eye on our social media is the best
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  Speaker 3: place to see where we're going next and letting us
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  Speaker 3: know if you want to see food Print in your
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  Speaker 3: region if we're not there.
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  Speaker 2: So if somebody hasn't heard of food Print before, just
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  Speaker 2: explain it really quickly. You basically download the app, you
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  Speaker 2: jump on board wherever you are in the country. It
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  Speaker 2: will tell you the outlets exactly associated who might be
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  Speaker 2: near you.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, So you can even follow your favorite eateries so
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  Speaker 3: you can do a little search. You can use the
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  Speaker 3: map for you to kind of scroll out, scroll around town,
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  Speaker 3: see what's around. Once you add those eateries to your favorites,
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  Speaker 3: you'll actually receive a push notification when they've got food available,
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  Speaker 3: and we know that our customers love that because food
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  Speaker 3: flies off the app in seconds, and so you do
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  Speaker 3: often have to be really quick to grab that food.
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  Speaker 3: Everything on the app is discounted from at least thirty
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  Speaker 3: percent off. There are times when eateries will put food
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  Speaker 3: on for sort of eighteen ninety even sometimes one hundred
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  Speaker 3: percent discount. That is making it free, and that is
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  Speaker 3: because those businesses just don't want to see that food
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  Speaker 3: ending up in the bin. You know, it's their hard work,
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  Speaker 3: it's their money, it's their time.
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  Speaker 2: And the fly by pick it up and just pick
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  Speaker 2: it up. Happen to get yourself a great meal or
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  Speaker 2: a bit of a discount.
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  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: Do you know how much food you have kept out
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  Speaker 2: of landfall? Can you calculate that we can?
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  Speaker 3: Normally the figure a say, share is that we've kept
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  Speaker 3: about one hundred and seventy tons of emissions from entering
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  Speaker 3: the atmosphere and warming the planet. So that's sort of
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  Speaker 3: the main number that we focus on food based having
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  Speaker 3: that impact on climate change. Yeah, means that that number
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  Speaker 3: is the really important one for me.
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  Speaker 2: Oh, good on you, Michael, Thank you for finding another
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  Speaker 2: solution to help out the businesses. Thanks so much and
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  Speaker 2: it's lovely to talk to you. That was Michael Garvey
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  Speaker 2: foodprint do we just Google foodprint.
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  Speaker 3: You can find us on our website which is foodprint
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  Speaker 3: dot app or foodprint INZD on social media.
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• 6:21
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