A new solution to save money – and food

How Osose Itua found her footing as founder of startup Foodage 

May 24, 2024

Inspired by Waterloo’s startup culture and her own background, Osose Itua embraces the power to just starting building. 

Growing up in Nigeria, Malaysia and Canada, Osose saw very different attitude towards food and food waste, shaping her perspective on its value and the importance of minimizing waste. 

Her startup, Foodage, aims to help restaurants accurately determine their daily food purchasing needs to avoid food waste – and a waste of money. 

“I grew up in a very circular economy where nothing goes to waste. I was always mindful of the food I consumed, paying close attention to expiration dates and ensuring nothing was wasted,” Osose says. 

Her first concept was a refrigerator camera to anticipate food waste. That idea quickly evolved into a cost-effective business-to-business solution aimed at maximizing impact. 

Foodage’s software aims to anticipate restaurants’ fluctuations in food purchasing demand with up to 65 per cent more accuracy than currently, empowering operations to reduce unnecessary expenses and more accurately forecast staffing needs.

Osose’s parents instilled in her the values of hard work, grit and determination and at the University of Waterloo her entrepreneurial spirit truly flourished. In particular through co-operative work experiences, including at four startups.

She joined Velocity’s Cornerstone program and digital space and won the Velocity Pitch Competition Winter term 2023, which coincided with the day her team won the Norman Esch Entrepreneurship Awards for engineering capstone design project. Now Osose is completing her Master of Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology (MBET) at Waterloo’s Conrad School for Business and Entrepreneurship. 

“I see an amazing ecosystem at Waterloo, where people are actively working on their ideas, which inspires me to work on one of my own.” 

Find Velocity resources and events on campus