Chicago, IL – May 22, 2018 – Americans waste about 40% of their food according to a 2012 National Resources Defense Council study. This waste costs about $2,000 per year for an average American family of four.
Today, Chicago based tech startup Ovie is launching a series of products on Kickstarter to help people stop wasting food and money by keeping track of their food, so they can eat it before it spoils. Essentially, the entire Ovie Smarterware system turns an ordinary fridge into a smart fridge, but without the smart fridge price tag!
Ty Thompson, co-founder and CEO of Ovie, stated, “People don’t want to waste all of this food – it just happens. We’re busy, we invest time and resources to make a great meal, and then we end up throwing away a large amount of food simply because we forget about it. We wanted to help solve this problem by creating a product that would be simple to use and bring a more mindful approach to food storage.”
The Smarterware product line consists of Smart Tags, 6-cup containers, clips, and universal connectors that can attach to any container or bottle in a fridge. The Smart Tags fit securely into the Smarterware container, clip, and universal connector. Each tag features a light ring to give instant at-a-glance visual cues showing the freshness of every tagged item in the fridge. For instance, the light starts off on green meaning it’s safe to eat, then turns yellow to show it should be eaten soon, and then ultimately to red when it’s time to throw it out.
“We designed our smart tags to not only track food for notification purposes, but also to provide visual indicators to anyone in the household,” noted Dave Joseph, co-founder and head of product design. “The color changing light ring was key in making it extremely easy for every member of the household to see what food is important to eat now.”
Ovie goes a step further and integrates with Alexa and other smart home hubs, recipe apps, and grocery apps. It will keep track of everything tagged and will send reminders to a smartphone when food is about to go bad. It will also provide tips on how to eat it, recipe ideas using other tagged items in the fridge, and even connect with grocery apps to allow users to order missing ingredients to complete a recipe.
Stacie Thompson, co-founder and head of marketing for Ovie added, “Each month Ovie will send a personalized recap to users detailing how they have been using Ovie to improve their food tracking and consumption. The recaps will celebrate wins, offer tips based on personal consumption trends, and share how together with the rest of the Ovie network we’re reducing food waste & its negative impact on our world.”
Scott Wilson, owner of MNML Design Studio in Chicago and creator of 8 successful Kickstarter projects, rounds out the founding Ovie team.
There are seven Kickstarter pledge levels ranging from the very limited “Super Early Bird” price of $35 (includes 3 Smart Tags and 3 Universal Connectors) to a “Tag Everything Kit” at $300 (includes 15 Smart Tags, 9 bowls, 9 Universal Connectors, and 6 clips).
Ovie plans to begin shipping Smarterware in early 2019. Retail sets will start at $59.99 and will be available at www.ovie.life. For more information, email Jessica@maxborgesagency.com or follow us at @FridgeSmarter.
About Ovie
Ovie is a Chicago based food tech startup created to help people reduce food waste in the home. Food waste isn’t just frustrating to families everywhere, but it’s also a huge environmental and social challenge. Ovie created Smarterware to be a piece of the puzzle in solving this problem. Smarterware consists of a SmartTag, a container, a clip, or a universal connector all working together to help you keep up with your food in the physical and digital world. Learn more at www.ovie.life.
