Foraging app helps keen cooks find fresh ingredients

Chef René Redzepi’s app helps users find edible plants in different environments every season.

Foraging app Vild Mad is to launch to help users find the freshest ingredients possible straight from the earth. Chef René Redzepi has created the platform to integrate foraging into people’s way of food sourcing and not purely for fun. While many people are likely to have picked blackberries from a bush to make a pie, Redzepi hopes the app will act as a guide to finding other commonly used ingredients for meals and snacks, getting more people outside along the way.

Vild Mad, Danish for ‘wild food’, is a free resource to be used by anyone from the experimental cook to being integrated into a school’s curriculum, a guide for which is included in its offerings. The comprehensive website that accompanies the app provides images of plants in season for each month, so users know what they are looking for and can avoid anything that shouldn’t be eaten. There is also a section that determines which type of plants are likely to be found in differing areas, such as waterways, open land, towns and forests, and accompanying recipes to be created with finds. Those living in Denmark can sign up to workshops led by expert nature rangers. Vild Mad will launch to the public with an open and outdoor festival in Copenhagen on August 27.

Being friendly to the environment with sustainable food choices is a popular market, with micro-farm that allows for efficient growing in urban spaces all year round and animal free ‘milk’ that tastes like the real thing both proving popular. How could technology help put an end to the huge masses of food waste the world produces every year?