It’s no surprise that her upbringing has influenced how she approaches food; it has also shaped her passion for working in the F&B industry. While studying hospitality in college, she worked various jobs in the industry and secured an advertising position focused on this after graduation. 

In 2021, Martinesi founded the bilingual app Chomp in Hong Kong. The platform allows users to buy surplus food from over 250 stores across the city. Participating eateries package their leftover food in a “mystery box” and offer it at a discounted price to consumers. Customers place their orders and then pick them up at a specified time. Products with a limited shelf life, such as flowers and skincare items, are also available in the app.

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When Martinesi moved to Hong Kong for her graduate job in 2019, she experienced a huge culture shock. “When I lived here and had to start cooking for myself, shopping and filling my kitchen, I realised everything was in plastic. Everything gets thrown out every day. If you keep the garbage, you have ants, cockroaches and other insects. I was shocked because my family used to take out the garbage around once a week,” she says.

“There is no composting system. There is no recycling system. The restaurants’ menus were extensive, meaning they must have hundreds of ingredients in the back. Whereas in Europe, you have a select in a cafe, you have five to six dishes and the ingredients are usually recycled.”

According to government figures, approximately 11,100 tonnes of municipal solid waste are generated in Hong Kong daily. The largest category is food, which accounts for around 30 percent of the waste, followed by plastic and paper. The waste is sent to two main landfills: the West New Territories Landfill and the North East New Territories Landfill. Based on the current daily waste intake, authorities have predicted that the landfills will be full by 2026.

Martinesi was inspired to launch her food-saving app when her friend in the F&B industry was laid off during the Covid-19 pandemic. “One of her last tasks at this job was to throw away the garbage, and the bag was filled with perfectly edible food. She said, ‘This is my entire salary in this black bag,’ It was annoying to see that someone had to be cut while food was being wasted,” she recounts. 

Sitting on a couch, Martinesi and her friends came up with Chomp. She launched the application in November 2021 with approximately 200 users and 20 enrolled stores.

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In the early days of Chomp, Martinesi reached out to restaurants to help them understand that every bit of leftover food has value. She had to explain that thrown-away food was an investment down the drain. It was almost inevitable that there would always be leftover food due to uncontrollable factors, she explained, such as customers’ demands or simply unintentional mistakes. Enrolling on Chomp was an economical choice that could generate more revenue for these businesses. 

She also swiftly realised the need to introduce this concept to a broader audience. In addition to partnering with well-known brands and providing significant discounts on their food, the startup hosts invite-only workshops for high school and university students.

Martinesi says the educational process has been challenging. “It’s not something that the government or the schools push for. Food waste is not a very big topic, and it’s not a pretty one either,” she explains.

The government has implemented a strategy to address food waste on multiple fronts, such as educating the public, promoting food donations, and collecting and recycling food. One of its latest policies is a waste charging scheme, but it has been suspended due to widespread public concerns, such as its complexity, the additional financial burden on citizens and insufficient space in residences for proper waste sorting.

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To step up efforts around raising awareness about food waste in the city, Martinesi and her team spent around one year bringing The Rescued Feast to life. The plan is to use food scraps from vendors to create a large-scale meal. Although they approached hundreds of partners, they faced one rejection after another. “Just because nobody has done this idea before, it doesn’t mean it’s impossible. They just said ‘no’ because it’s the easiest answer,” she says. The startup teamed up with a food charity, More Good, to host its first dinner in April.

Three months later, it hosted the feast for the second time in a buffet format, serving around 200 people in collaboration with Soho House Hong Kong. Approximately 350 kg of food waste was repurposed for this event. The club’s chef, Chris Czerwinski, had only 24 hours to create the menu using unconventional ingredients such as IPA beer and cocoa husks. Some ingredients also came in unexpected amounts, like 20 kg of white egg, 100 kg of fish and 7 kg of spice.

“The menu was a bit of a mix, but that’s what makes it fun,” Martinesi says. Besides using the fish for dishes like curry fish balls and Chinese dumplings called siu mai. Czerwinski pulled an all-nighter making fish sausages cassoulet. He also used surplus egg whites to make desserts and sweets, such as pavlova, marshmallows and nougats.

Among all the dishes, Martinesi says roasted gochujang cabbage, made with cabbage hearts and the Korean hot, sweet and savoury condiment, captured the essence of the event. “Cabbage and lettuce hearts are often thrown away as they are very hard. Chef Chris made a great point: If you marinate, tenderise and cook it under really high heat, it can become quite soft. It’s also a great vegan meat alternative because it has a meaty texture,” she says. 

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Chomp’s three-person team, supported by interns and part-time staff, has celebrated many wins during their journey in the last three years. The number of stores it has partnered with has increased by over tenfold, with more tenants voluntarily joining. It also collaborates with Kowloon Shangri-la to offer lunch and dinner meal boxes serving surplus food from the buffet by the hotel’s Café Kool. Ultimately, Martinesi hopes her platform can scale and expand to different cities.

Throughout these accomplishments, this budding entrepreneur sometimes grapples with the stress of sustaining progress, navigating unforeseen circumstances and seeking inspiration. But through it all, she still finds solace in the simple art of cooking delicious meals.

Just like her mom, Martinesi still does not like throwing food away, making sure that every ingredient is repurposed into a new dish. One of her specialities is making hummus from wilted carrots. “If you peel and soak [the wilted carrots] in water for a little while, they harden just a tiny bit. Then, roast them on high heat, and the flavour of the carrots will become really strong, although they may not look the prettiest. Blend them with beans to make carrot hummus,” she says.

“Many people are not creative enough with the food they have in their kitchen. Research it. See how many ways there are to use it. One thing to reduce food waste in your kitchen is to learn about the food that you have.”

Meet more Leaders of Tomorrow 2024 in the Food & Beverage sector.

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