An app that reduces food waste by turning surplus meals at businesses into discounted “mystery meal boxes” for customers, has been named a finalist in the sustainability category of the Spirit of Hong Kong Awards 2025.
Yindii’s Hong Kong general manager Agnes Lee Yin-kei said the recognition was a tribute to “every food hero and shop that believes a less wasteful city is possible”.
For Lee, who sees bakeries and cafes throwing away trays of unsold food each night, the problem is painfully clear.
“You walk into a bakery at 10pm and the shelves are still full. They can’t donate everything, and most of it ends up in the bin,” she said.
Yindii was founded in Bangkok in 2020 by French entrepreneur Louis-Alban Batard-Dupre, who was volunteering at a food bank during the pandemic when he saw “perfectly edible food going to landfill because it couldn’t reach people in time”.
What he witnessed inspired a tech-powered bridge between food retailers and consumers, an idea Lee helped localise when Yindii acquired her Hong Kong start-up Fenix in 2023.
