Ukrainians have launched the Ricky Food app, which will help save over 50% on food, and businesses reduce food waste. What features will the startup have to compete with monobank's "secret boxes"?

How the idea for Ricky Food came about

The idea for Ricky Food was born in the spring of 2022. The founder of the startup, Ruslan Naryzhny, while in Europe, actively used the Too Good To Go application and was delighted with the opportunity to buy products with significant discounts (70–90%), saving them from disposal. This inspired him to create a similar service for Ukraine, which would help people save money and businesses reduce food waste. In May 2022, Ruslan began working on the development.

Who is on the startup team now?

The Ricky Food team consists of five people. In addition to Ruslan, Lana Sapizhuk is a co-founder who is involved in project development in Ukraine and connecting businesses. Also working part-time are a FrontEnd developer who helps with the mobile application and admin panel, an SMM specialist, and a freelance designer.

Over time, Zakhar Kocherga joined the team and became the co-founder of the startup. He has 4 years of experience working at Glovo and Bolt as a development manager, as well as 6 years in his own business projects in the HoReCa sector.

How Ricky Food works

Ricky Food is a platform that allows businesses to sell surplus products at discounted prices, and users to profitably buy food with over 50% off. The application provides the opportunity to order “magic bags” – sets of products that are left over in stores, cafes or restaurants and can be sold at significant discounts.

It is important to note that the contents of the magic bag are always a surprise - customers do not know in advance what will be inside, since the store only adds the products it has left.

Magic boxes are divided into four main categories:

• meat - various types of meat products;
• vegetables and fruits - seasonal and preserved products;
• pastries - bakery products and confectionery;
• various goods - groceries, snacks, etc.

There can also be separate flower boxes, which allows flower shops to join the service and sell flowers at a discount through the app.

In the "delivery boxes" section, the customer will be able to see a specific list of products before purchasing. These can be, for example, boxes of cereals, pasta, sweets, and other long-term storage products.

Who is the application for?

Ricky Food is focused on two main user groups: consumers and businesses.

The first group is people who want to save on food and support the idea of ​​fighting food waste:

• large families looking for great deals on groceries;
• young people and students who choose a frugal lifestyle;
• people who are environmentally conscious and support sustainable initiatives.

The second group includes business partners - these are stores, cafes, restaurants, and hotels that want to reduce losses due to unsold products:

• grocery stores and supermarkets;
• bakeries, cafes and restaurants;
• flower shops that may sell bouquets at a discount;
• hotels that may offer leftovers from breakfasts or buffets through a discounted service.

Integration with Ricky Food has certain advantages for shops, cafes and restaurants. Customers who come to pick up a magic bag often make additional purchases on the spot, which can bring additional income to the business. This model is already working successfully in Europe, where visitors, picking up their orders, simultaneously make purchases.

“In addition, Ricky Food helps attract new customers. Users can find new establishments in the application, try their products and evaluate the atmosphere. Having visited a store, cafe or restaurant for the first time, they can return again, which helps to increase the regular customer base. Thus, Ricky Food becomes an effective tool for attracting new customers and increasing business awareness,” the startup says.

Ukrainians began to show interest in social networks even before the application was launched

Ricky Food's active presence on social media, including Instagram, LinkedIn, and Threads, is contributing to the rapid growth of interest in the app.

"On LinkedIn, posts related to Ricky Food receive significant feedback, which encourages people to download the application and register in the system. Some users even try to purchase products without reading that all positions are still in test mode. Some are sure that the service is already working in production and recommend it to their friends. This indicates high audience interest and the potential for a large-scale launch," says co-founder Lana Sapizhuk.

Finance and monetization

Ricky Food was developed solely with the founder's own funds. No investments or grants were involved — all expenses, including marketing, market analysis, and consulting, were covered by the team's personal resources.

“According to my preliminary estimates, our app is worth $100,000,” Lana Sapizhuk noted.

The service will be monetized through transaction fees or fees for using the platform by businesses.

Ricky Food is actively looking for investors to further develop and scale the service.

“We are open to cooperation with those who share our mission of combating food waste and strive to support innovative business in Ukraine,” says Lana Sapizhuk.

If a business wants to join and become a partner, they can fill out a form on the startup's website.

Competition

Similar services already exist on the international market, including Too Good To Go and Foodsy. In Ukraine, Ricky Food is the first application in the field of combating food waste and selling surplus products, as well as adapted to local realities.

The other day, the Expirenza platform for catering establishments from the developers of monobank launched a pilot project called "Secret Boxes" - meal kits at special prices.

As the Ricky Food startup notes, their application was developed entirely for this solution over two years by co-founder Ruslan Naryzhny.

Lana Sapizhuk explains how Ricky Food differs from the monobank project: "The difference is that in mono there is just a feature for secret boxes in an application not specialized for this. Our application is designed specifically for this with animations, a convenient booking flow, and gamification, where Ricky Food the Raccoon saves food from being wasted - and statistics are also collected on how much food we saved. We also have magic surprise bags - this is an analogue of secret boxes in mono, and separate boxes - this is a list of discounted goods for delivery, and these are not only desserts, these will be cereals, canned goods, pasta, mayonnaise and other various products."

About plans

Ricky Food is now available on the App Store . The app will be available on Google Play in a week.

Currently, partner connection is possible in manual mode, as the admin panel for businesses is being actively developed. In the future, partners will be able to independently manage magic bags and see a list of orders in their admin.

The Ricky Food team is in the process of signing an agreement with Varus and is negotiating with other businesses to integrate into the application.

"The main next step is to develop the function of delivering boxes with long-term storage products, as well as scaling the service to all of Ukraine. In the long term, Ricky Food aims to connect as many stores, restaurants, and cafes as possible, creating an effective platform for combating food waste in Ukraine," the startup said.

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