New Smartphone App Helps Users ‘Buy Local, Eat Smart, Get Healthy’
Posted: November 26, 2014
Categories: GoodFoodBites / News from Sustain Members
SmartAPPetite is pleased to announce the launch of its new app, which provides Southwestern Ontarians with tailored tips about local food, healthy eating, recipes, and information on local farmers and food providers.
As part of an effort to connect eaters in the region to healthy, local food options, the smartphone app promotes the motto ‘Buy Local, Eat Smart, Get Healthy.’ Its creators aim to strengthen the local food economy while helping people improve their diets.
The SmartAPPetite Project, a member of Sustain Ontario, is a collaboration between the Human Environments Analysis Laboratory (HEAL) at Western University, the London Training Centre, Brescia University College, Wilfrid Laurier University, and the Old East Village Business Improvement Area.
The app provides users users with daily customized messages containing information on the seasonality and nutritional content of local foods, as well as recipes and dietary tips that have been developed with Brescia’s Food & Nutrition program. Each message, approved by registered dietitian and Brescia professor Colleen O’Connor, is also linked with information about local food providers whose ingredients are directly tied to the recipes. Specifically, the app provides a local food map to assist users in locating local farmers, restaurants and vendors who carry the particular foods that users are seeking. Local food providers can sign up here to have their business listed on the app.
Inequalities of access to healthy, local foods are complex and call for multi-pronged solutions. Through its educational function, the creators of SmartAPPetite hope the app can help to address issues such as diet-related health issues associated with Southwestern Ontario’s food environments. “Educating the public and spreading awareness of the multiple economic, environmental, and health benefits of consuming local food is a necessary first step to fostering greater demand,” Gilliland says. “This change in food spending patterns can in turn contribute to jobs growth in local food and strengthen Ontario’s economy.”
At present, Ontarians spend approximately $18 billion annually on food produced outside the province. Experts estimate that if every family in Ontario shifted $10 of their weekly food purchases to local food, Ontario businesses would create 10,000 new jobs and generate an additional $2.4 billion in food sales annually.
As its user base grows, SmartAPPetite will be expanded throughout Southwestern Ontario, before being taken province-wide and, eventually, across Canada. The app was developed with seed funding from Western and the Province’s Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities, and technical support provided by London firm InnerGeek.
The SmartAPPetite app is available for download at: www.smartappetite.ca.