Don't throw that away: New business near Bedford helps you create a great meal from leftover ingredients in your fridge

How many times have you looked in your fridge and thought to yourself, ‘what can I do with these leftovers?’

Well, before you throw them away – why not think of them more as an ingredient instead?

That’s the philosophy behind a new business which launched in the outskirts of Flitwick three weeks ago.

Called Yummonom – the website is the brainchild of husband and wife team Lawrence and Sophie O’Shea – and, what’s more, it uses AI.

Lawrence said: “I had the idea in the middle of the night a few months before after clearing out the fridge of a whole load of unused and past-their-best ingredients – I was so frustrated about it.

“The more I thought about it, the more I realised that this is something that almost everyone I know struggles with. My wife is a prominent YouTuber who creates content about how people can make their grocery budget stretch further, and we regularly have conversations about what people can do to spend less and save more.

“So, in my spare time I got to work developing something which could inspire people to save those ingredients before they’re wasted – saving themselves money and making a positive impact on the environment at the same time.”

So how does it work?

Well, the user just specifies the ingredients they have to work with and a bespoke recipe is generated. Every recipe generated is automatically saved in each user's recipe book, so they can recreate their masterpieces at any time.

Lawrence said: “We use the same frameworks and models used in Silicon Valley and manipulate them to deliver delicious recipes and food suggestions. There’s obviously quite a lot to it behind the scenes, but we’ve built Yummonom so it keeps pace with all the developments in the AI space – which means our recipes and products will keep getting better and better.”

So where did the name Yummonom come?

“I remember as a child we had some relatives from Australia stay with us. My father’s cousin would always refer to the food my Dad cooked as ‘yummo’. I found it hilarious. It sounded great in her Melbourne accent.

"When we were thinking of a name for the app we wanted something which spoke to the ‘output’ – that is, what users would get from it: Tasty food. ‘Nom’ is a word people use for food – so Yummonom was born.”

The couple have already been bowled over by the response in such a short space of time.

The 37-year-old said: “It’s been fantastic. We’ve had lots of interest, and we’ve already saved our members over £10k in food that would otherwise have been wasted – and that’s just in the first two weeks. Everyone has been incredibly generous with their feedback – and it’s helped us steer the app and its development. When we hear of the meals people have created and the money they’ve saved, it’s incredibly rewarding.”

The new business is on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook and Sophie has been pushing it on her YouTube channel – Sopherina.

Lawrence said: “Sophie has been instrumental in the direction and delivery of Yummonom, and shared the app with her viewers. Without her input, we couldn’t have achieved the start that we have already.”

Yummonom is also looking to introduce vegan and gluten-free recipes as well an introductory offer of a month’s free trial when using the code YUMMO at the checkout.

And is encouraging users to nominate a charity who they think would benefit from its technology.