A start-up dining out app is tackling food waste in the restaurant business by dishing out cheap meals to its users.
Founded in 2014 by former corporate lawyer Rob Hall, Wriggle now acts as a restaurant discovery tool and offers users same-day discounts to fill excess capacity.
But initially, it began as an idea to tackle food waste – a problem that costs the UK restaurant industry upwards of 拢650m every year.
Hall was based in Brazil when he came up with the concept. Now based in Bristol, the scheme has since rolled out to Brighton and Cardiff.
Speaking at a 老九品茶Cloud roundtable sponsored by law firm Gregg Latchams, he said: 鈥淢y brother was playing around with some start-up ideas, he was looking at something and asked me to run through it and I actually came back with: 鈥業 don鈥檛 think that鈥檚 right. I think this would work tackling food waste鈥�.
鈥淎nd he didn鈥檛 like it so I went and did it.鈥�
Heralded by some as a rival to Groupon, Hall鈥檚 initial concept was to聽help businesses reactively reduce the price of their food to stop it going to waste.
Its developers, though, are quick to distance themselves from Groupon 鈥� instead claiming they create 鈥榮pontaneous customers鈥�.
At times when independent restaurants have spaces available,聽customers can use it to discover new places to eat after the app聽鈥榖roadened out鈥�.
The platform鈥檚 functionality is simple 鈥� local businesses reactively reduce the price of their products when they need to sell food close to the end of its usage, or to fill tables.
Wriggle customers can then, in a couple of taps, make cut-price last-moment purchases.
Time-relevant offers can be tailored to customers鈥� preferences through a variety of channels.
Hall added: 鈥淚t鈥檚 developed over time鈥� We pick out nice places and we connect their unused capacity.
鈥淏ut actually as we鈥檝e developed an audience it鈥檚 also sort of developed into a way to help places reach great customers in new ways.
鈥淚t鈥檚 based on which businesses in the city want to get customers in for whatever reason and then you can filter down so the right thing will pop up.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not using artificial intelligence but we do plan to because that鈥檚 the next step.
鈥淲e鈥檙e collecting a lot of really interesting data on people鈥檚 purchasing and what鈥檚 driving them, and location.
鈥淐onverting that into making sure that the right thing pops up for you as quickly as possible is very valuable.鈥�
Meals like burgers or bagels can be bought through the app at a discount, typically around 20 per cent. Wriggle then takes a small cut of the sale.
Explaining the current locations, Hall said: 鈥淏righton has the highest density of food and drink businesses per head in the country.
鈥淎nd Cardiff is great because it鈥檚 a capital city and it鈥檚 just down the road, which makes it very convenient to launch in.
鈥淭here are different reasons for different cities, but basically regional cities with a nice dense population in a small area, with a good number of independent businesses.鈥�