‘Reftovers’ startup saves the planet, one late-night snack at a time

Utah-based startup Leftovers is fighting food waste and food insecurity in the United States by partnering with local restaurants to offer cheaper food options.

Three weeks ago, BYU students Spencer Bartholomew, Blake Rouse, and Dallin Bentley launched Leftovers. It’s now a text thread-based startup that notifies consumers of cheap local restaurant leftovers. The ultimate goal is to reduce food insecurity and waste in Utah and the United States. America.

Almost a third of the world’s population, 2.37 billion people, did not have enough food in 2020. Rouse and Bentley saw first-hand the impact of this problem and possible solutions, which inspired the creation of this startup.

“While my wife and I were backpacking through Europe this summer, we discovered that the app was helping fight food waste in Europe,” says Rouse. “We came back to America and there’s nothing here. No one is doing this. So we started talking about it and doing it.”

Bentley, one of the startup’s engineers, was on a church mission in Mexico, where he saw the impact of food insecurity firsthand. He compared his observations to food waste in the United States.

“From the perspective of seeing so much food wasted, not only is it impacting the environment, but it’s just heartbreaking, especially considering there are people in Utah County who are suffering from food insecurity.” “The food could be sent to them or to poor college students who can’t afford it.”

In the United States, 10.4% of households in 2021 will have low or very low food security in 2021. Utah was just above the national average with her 11.2%.

Leftovers’ initial launch at Bun Boiz, a business started by BYU students, sold out restaurant leftovers in just over four minutes.

Jimmy Watson, business owner of Bun Boiz, shared last month how Leftovers made his business less wasteful and more profitable.

“Most of the time we throw it away like 40 loaves of bread,” Watson said. “We try to sell out, but sometimes we don’t. Weekends are more common. He’s probably minimized to one or two. The maximum we’ve seen in the last month is he has four left. They It sells out pretty well. It’s great.”

The Future Leftovers Restaurant collaboration, like Bun Boyz, has the potential to reduce food waste by up to 90%.

“They were the biggest ever,” says Bentley of his collaboration with Leftovers and Bun Boiz. “We are working with the Great Harvest Bread Company. They are just as passionate about giving back to their communities and helping reduce food waste.”

According to the startup’s website, 76% of consumers are new to Leftovers’ partnered restaurants. Jacob Wright, Leftovers’ first customer, shared his thoughts on the game-changing experience.

“I had heard of Bun Boiz but had never tried it, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to try Bun Boiz at a discounted price,” says Wright. “I think it’s a great idea and a good way to reduce the amount of food that is wasted. It’s also a good way to get

Leftovers, along with UX designer April Teams, will soon launch and scale the app and partner with other local businesses passionate about reducing food waste.

“We have about a dozen restaurants in the pipeline, which I won’t name at this time, but they are expected to open soon,” said Rouse, a startup growth and product specialist.

The startup has amassed a consumer base of thousands and continues to grow since its launch three weeks ago.

“From a business perspective, they can make a ton of extra money and fight food waste. From a consumer perspective, they can get food for half the price,” Bar said. Solomie said. “Everyone wins and everyone loves it.”

Solving the world’s problems is no easy task. For the three founders, late nights, long days, and quitting their jobs were the price they paid to scale their startups.

“Technically, we’re trying to build it as quickly as possible. We work over 80 hours a week,” said Bartholomew, sitting at his desk in Provo’s Startup Building. One of his startup engineers, Bartholomew, shared what a typical day of raising Leftovers looks like for him.

“A lot of coding. My wife works the night shift at the hospital — she’s a nurse. When she goes to work, I’m coding. When I wake up, I start coding.” He said. “We get here between 8 and 9. We spend the first few hours chatting about strategy and different things we’re building, then we’re coding from noon to 2am.”

Another Leftovers engineer, Bentley, describes long days of coding as necessary due to the current growth and demands of the business.

“It’s not scalable for us to bring in a lot of restaurants until we have the technical side of it,” says Bentley. “Soon we will be launching more restaurants so the gates can open and people can start pouring in. We are growing very quickly so we are doing our best. Good question, so far our biggest obstacle has been growth, because so many people want to be on both sides.”

While the trio have quit their jobs and continue to sacrifice time to further the Leftovers’ primary cause, BYU’s Sandbox and Creator Program help sustain and support their ideas.

“The sandbox gave me the opportunity to do it as course work that I could treat as a full-time job,” says Rouse. “There’s no funding right now. In the startup world, it’s called bootstrapping — that’s why we bootstrap.”

Funding is available through these programs for entrepreneurial students such as Bartholomew, Bentley and Rouse.

“Once you start gaining momentum, BYU will provide some help. Once you start gaining more traction, you can go to BYU through the sandbox and creator programs. provides the funding to get us on track,” Rouse said. “This grant is 100% dependent on showing us how we can go from customer number one to a venture-backed startup that can raise real money from venture capital and investors.”

Sandbox 2023 applications are open to students of all majors until October 28th.

Sign up at https://signup.leftovers.app to be notified of Leftovers’ next half price food drop.