More than Foodsaving Machines: Insights from Communities Fighting Food Waste in the Digital Age

Grassroots initiatives promoting sharing-for-community are viewed as contributing to the transition towards a more socially equitable and environmentally sustainable world. However, along with other challenges, they often encounter technological barriers. In this article we report on our engagement with a number of self-organised foodsaving and sharing communities active in Europe which use the open-source platform Karrot to coordinate their activities. Our aim has been to explore the use of Karrot, across various contexts. We have also been interested in understanding Karrot's impact on community-led foodsaving and sharing daily practices, as well as on community governance and organising; aspects which distinguish grassroots initiatives from more top-down anti-food waste models. We found that while Karrot facilitates certain processes, it does not fully meet the needs of the researched communities, which in turn have been configuring Karrot and have been developing unique digital ecologies, combining Karrot with off-the-shelf commercial tools. By recognising foodsaving and sharing communities as elements of a larger transformational ecosystem, we broaden our discussion to include the role of technology beyond just community-led foodsaving and sharing initiatives. Reflecting on the process of developing digital ecologies, we explore interoperability as a design element that can enhance sharing-for-community practices. Next, we propose strategies to strengthen community governance and organisation. Finally, we seed Community-Supported Software as an evolving framework that can facilitate the collaboration between grassroots place-based and software communities.