Saveful: Empowering Australian households to save food, money, and the planet

Australians discard 7.6 million tonnes of food annually, with households responsible for more than a third. Saveful is a mobile application designed to support households reduce food waste and improve financial outcomes. By guiding users to cook with ingredients they already have, Saveful aims to support mindful consumption and sustainable habits. This article reports findings from a naturalistic longitudinal, observational field study involving over 32,000 surveys completed by 10,699 users over 12 months. On average, households reported wasting 1.47 kg of food weekly. Among users who actively logged recipes, a total of 5879 kg of food was recorded as saved, equivalent to approximately $32,452 based on national estimates of food waste costs. Scenario-based extrapolation suggests that if similar behaviours were adopted more broadly, aggregate savings would amount to $75.6 million annually. Segmentation identified three user personas: The Everyday Saver, The Savvy Saver, and The Conscious Starter. Cooking frequency was positively associated with food savings, suggesting the more people cook at home, the more they save food. These findings provide insight into how digitally delivered interventions such as Saveful may support changes in household food management practices, contributing to Sustainable Development Goals of responsible consumption, economic growth, and climate action.