Same-Day Discarded Supermarket Food to Single-Parent Households—The "Stenas" Demonstration Achieves an Average 42% Match Rate

On April 7, 2026, the Sustainable Food Chain Council and Nessu Inc. announced the results of a demonstration experiment of the food-matching platform "Stenasu," carried out as a Ministry of the Environment fiscal 2025 model project. This mechanism, which delivers in real time the fresh foods that food supermarkets can no longer sell that day to single-parent households and scholarship-receiving students, is drawing attention as a groundbreaking approach that simultaneously solves two social issues: food loss and child poverty.

What is "Stenasu": matching fresh foods slated for same-day disposal in real time

"Stenasu" is a food-matching platform developed under the concept of "not throwing away" (sutenai). It is a mechanism that, via a smartphone app, informs support recipients such as single-parent households, scholarship-receiving students, and children's cafeterias in real time about fresh and daily-delivery foods (produce, seafood, meat, in-store bakery, etc.) at a food supermarket whose best-before or use-by date expires that day.

To make effective use of foods normally discarded just before closing, they are offered at 60–75% off the usual store price. Furthermore, when a certificate of receipt of the child-rearing allowance or a scholarship is presented, "social pricing" applies for an additional 50% discount. The innovation that differs from conventional food banks or discount sales is the point of unifying food-loss reduction and economic support through price design.

Demonstration results: 4 stores, 428 people, an average 42% matching rate

The demonstration experiment was carried out over about two months, from October 6 to November 30, 2025, at three stores of Life Corporation (Takenotsuka, Nishikamata, and Chitose-Karasuyama) and one store of Tokyu Store (Nakameguro Main Store).

The main results are as follows.

The point that in-store bakery in particular achieved a matching rate of 86% is worthy of note. Freshly baked bread is a leading example of a product with a high same-day disposal rate, but it was demonstrated to have high compatibility with the support-recipient segment that has a strong motive to "consume it today."

Food loss and child poverty: a design that simultaneously solves two issues

Japan's food loss is about 4.64 million tons per year (fiscal 2023). Of that, disposal from the business sector (supermarkets, convenience stores, etc.) accounts for 2.31 million tons. Meanwhile, Japan's relative child poverty rate is 11.5% (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, 2022), reaching 44.5% when limited to single-parent households.

The unique point of "Stenasu" is a design that squarely faces the fact that these two issues are structurally connected. By directly linking retailers troubled by food-disposal costs with support recipients who want to save on food expenses, it minimizes intermediate costs while bringing benefits to both.The background to Too Good To Go drawing attention in the Japanese marketIt is an initiative positioned within the flow of "re-valuing discarded food," which it also shares with

The significance of specializing in vegetables and fresh foods

Conventional food banks centered on preserved foods such as canned goods and dried foods. The point that "Stenasu" targets fresh foods such as produce, seafood, and meat is a new approach that scoops up the "vegetables and fish slated for same-day disposal" that had barely been reached until now.

Initiatives to save discarded vegetablesare diversifying, such as upcycling and use of off-grade vegetables, but "Stenasu" prevents disposal via the simplest route — direct distribution to consumers. Especially for produce such as vegetables and fruit, the matching rate varies by item, and there is also much room for future improvement.

Aiming for nationwide rollout in 2027: challenges and outlook for scaling up

Based on this demonstration's results, Nessu Inc. draws a roadmap that officially releases the service within fiscal 2025, expands to the Tokyo metropolitan area and some regional cities in fiscal 2026, and aims for nationwide rollout in fiscal 2027.

For scaling up, expanding the number of participating retail stores and informing support recipients are challenges. In this demonstration, only 82 of the 428 registrants (about 19%) were actual buyers, and a further improvement in the app-utilization rate is needed. On the other hand, the fact that the Life Nishikamata store recorded a high matching rate of 77.9% in the final week shows that results improve along with familiarity with the system.

The Ministry of the Environment adopting it as a model project means the administration officially evaluated an approach to the compound issue of "food-loss reduction × child support."The MAFF food-bank certification systemis a field where cooperation is also expected, and we will watch future policy developments.

Toward an era of turning "mottainai" into a mechanism

What "Stenasu's" demonstration results show is the possibility that, depending on ingenuity in technology and price design, reducing food disposal and providing food support to the socially vulnerable can go hand in hand. As an advanced case that embodies Japan's proud "mottainai" spirit on a digital platform, attention from home and abroad is also rising.

The disposal problem of vegetables and fresh foods can only be solved when farmers, retailers, consumers, and the administration cooperate. By mechanisms like "Stenasu" spreading nationwide, they are expected to contribute to loss reduction across the entire food supply chain.

Source:Sustainable Food Chain Council press release (PR TIMES, April 7, 2026)／Shokuhin Sangyo Shimbunsha (Stenasu demonstration launch)