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Comment by regoldste | Hacker News Reader

Has anyone found a review of how this app works in practice? It seems like it could work well for unopened perishable foods, but do the founders really expect that strangers are going to want to eat each others' half-eaten, saran-wrapped block of cheese? It sounds like a nice idea in theory, but in practice I think people are pretty turned off by eating strangers' food.

I think the founders would be better positioned for success if they marketed a social network component, which would facilitate friends and neighbors borrowing from each other.

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Hi, i'm Luca, one of Ratatouille App Developer. Seems crazy that stranger people can share food but nowadays stranger people share car with carpooling. The mechanism is the same but change the value delivered :).

Thanks for the feedback

The difference is that the car isn't fully consumed but can be reused. So the lessor has an incentive of maintaining quality of the original good. This is the same for apartments (AirBnB). In contrast, food get's wholly consumed. How does the original owner incentivized to maintain quality?

If anything, you should spin this off to create a marketplace for food bartering system.

This is an incisive and articulate explanation of my reasoning. Ride-sharing and food-sharing are different in a few meaningful ways that raise doubt that a food-sharing app should be premised on this analogy. Not only is it the case that the lessor (donator) has basically no incentive to maintain the quality of the food, but the lessee (recipient) may have no real way to evaluate the quality, other than to trust the lessor. It may be obvious when the food has spots of mold or smells expired, but it's not always that easy to tell.

Luca, I don't mean to criticize your idea, which is a great attempt at solving the problem of wasted food. I just doubt that this model will really take off. I think you underestimate how squeamish people are about perishable food--even when it's their own food. I think people readily throw out food based on even a small chance that it is expired or smells "off." People don't want to get sick, and they especially don't want to make their families and friends sick. I think most people consider the risk of food-bourne illness (and the general ickiness factor of expired food) to outweigh the cost associated with wasted food.

I second the bartering system suggested above, which could improve the quality of the traded food. I think there's more of a market for an app that helps them keep track of when their food will expire, and to evaluate whether their food is safe to eat.

Anyway, congrats on launching your app, and I wish you the best of luck!

> do the founders really expect that strangers are going to want to eat each others' half-eaten, saran-wrapped block of cheese?

http://nypost.com/2011/10/31/brooklyn-hipsters-go-dumpster-d...

That article is about scavenging for packaged grocery store food that isn't fresh enough to sell, but is certainly safe enough to eat.

Don't you think there's a meaningful difference between a packaged, untampered-with Starbucks salad that was on the shelves just hours earlier, and a block of cheese from a stranger's refrigerator?

Cheese is essentially milk that has gone bad and had bacteria added to it. Depending on the type of cheese and its packaging, it can last for a good long while in a refrigerator, and mold can be cut off and the rest consumed (esp. if most of it is covered in a rind). Some cheeses improve in flavor this way. Almost all of the cheese Americans have are either pasteurized or aged, and may include preservatives. As long as you're not pregnant, it's basically fine to eat your neighbor's old cheese.

I don't disagree, but you are missing my point, which is a descriptive matter of American attitudes about food.

For the most part, I accept your point that old neighbor-cheese (and eggs and slightly-wilted vegetables and over-ripe fruit) is probably completely safe. But for better or worse, Americans just don't think about food this way. We have highly sanitized attitudes and expectations about food. I suspect this is largely because we are highly disconnected from the food manufacturing and chain of supply processes. We are uneducated about food, and as a result we throw it away if we have even the slightest concern that it is unsafe.

We have no problem using the same bacteria-infested, broken-bristled toothbrush for 6 months, but we have no qualms about throwing away a $9 block of gruyere if we detect the tiniest spot of mold. It's just how we are.

Once upon a time, when a neighbor had a peach tree, that neighbor often shared with the neighbors the extra peaches every summer because unless you're into canning and freezing, you can't use all the peaches from a tree.

I think this is a app formalization of that behavior. Not sure it's necessary but it's interesting for sure.

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