How GB News’s own Alex Armstrong co‑founded a startup that could change the way we eat for good

Joe Sledge
Sun, 26 Apr 2026 05:00:01 +0000

A British food‑tech startup is on a mission to transform how we cook at home — and it all began with two Britons bonding over a familiar greeting in a Los Angeles office.

Alex Armstrong and Samuel Day first crossed paths eight years ago at CloudKitchens, the dark‑kitchen venture launched by Travis Kalanick after his exit from Uber.

“He was the only person I could say ‘you alright mate’ to without getting strange looks,” Alex laughs, recalling the moment he met his future co‑founder.

It was the start of a partnership that would follow them across continents and companies — and one that now sits at the heart of Sayvr.

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Alex, one of the People’s Channel’s most-loved presenters, says that early connection was the foundation for everything that came next, long before either of them imagined building a startup together.

The pair went on to work together at two more companies before finally taking the leap three years ago to build Sayvr, an AI‑powered app designed to help people cook with the ingredients they already have.

Between them, they’ve helped scale some serious ventures — from factory14, which raised $200million before exiting, to FacultyAI, now being acquired by Accenture at a £1.3billion valuation.

But the spark for Sayvr came from something far more ordinary.

During a family trip to Portugal, Sam watched his aunt open the fridge and conjure up a restaurant‑worthy lunch from what looked like almost nothing.

“How long until I can do that?” he asked. “Darling, I’ve been doing this for years,” she replied.

It stuck with him. Surely technology could shortcut decades of kitchen intuition.

And the timing was perfect.

Vision AI had finally reached the point where it could recognise messy, real‑world food images with real accuracy.

While much of the tech world was obsessing over chatbots, Alex and Sam saw a different opportunity — to build something genuinely useful.

The problem they’re tackling is one most British households know all too well. Grocery prices remain around 25 per cent higher than in 2021.

Sayvr argues that the average family throws away £60 of food every month — £720 a year straight into the bin.

Nationally, UK households discard 4.4 million tonnes of edible food annually, worth roughly £17 billion. For a typical family of four, that’s about £1,000 wasted every year.

And diets are worsening too: ultra‑processed foods now make up more than half of the average British adult’s daily calorie intake, one of the highest rates in Europe.

People are paying more, eating worse, and wasting more than ever. The founders call it an impending crisis — and it’s hard to disagree.

Sayvr’s solution is deliberately simple.

Open the app, snap a photo of whatever food you’ve got — raw ingredients in your fridge or even a dish you’ve spotted in a restaurant — and the technology does the rest.

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Within seconds, it generates recipes you can actually cook, breaks down the nutritional information, and tracks how much money you’re saving by cooking at home instead of ordering in.

Behind the scenes, the tech is far from simple.

Computer vision identifies ingredients and estimates quantities, while a reasoning layer turns that into realistic, personalised recipes.

Over time, the system learns your tastes and gets better at predicting what you’ll want to eat.

The company has just hit a string of major milestones.

Its biggest app update yet went live at the end of March, and engagement is climbing across the board — daily active users, weekly active users and day‑one retention are all up significantly on last year.

On the hardware side, Sayvr has unveiled the first prototype of its fridge sensor, designed and built entirely in the UK.

The founders were determined to keep manufacturing on home soil.

The device retrofits to any fridge, offering real‑time expiry tracking and automatic shopping‑list generation.

Privacy is built in: the sensor switches off the moment the fridge door opens, with a red light confirming it’s inactive.

Commercial momentum is building too.

Sayvr is closing its pre‑seed round, with lead angels already committed and several institutional investors now in due diligence.

User growth has been rapid. In the first four months of 2026 alone, Sayvr doubled its total users — matching the entire growth of the previous year.

Among them is Matt, a diabetic who uses the app to monitor his sugar intake. He’s described it as a “game changer”, even sharing the nutritional data with his GP to help track his condition.

Alex and Sam are exactly the kind of people they’re building for. Neither learned to cook properly growing up, and both work close to seven days a week.

“The last thing we want at six in the evening is decision fatigue before we’ve even decided what we’re eating,” Alex says.

Looking ahead, the pair have ambitious plans for what they call a fully integrated Kitchen Operating System — technology that knows when to order food, guides you through cooking, and helps turn the average home cook into something closer to an expert.

Partnerships with major grocery retailers across the UK, North America and Europe are already in the pipeline, with home‑delivery integration expected in the coming months.

The roadmap also includes collaborations with celebrity chefs and voice‑led cooking guidance, though the team insists on perfecting the basics first.

“If everyone’s Gordon Ramsay, there’s no food waste,” Alex says of the ultimate goal.

The kitchen, they argue, is one of the last spaces in the home where AI hasn’t yet embedded itself in a genuinely useful way.

Sayvr intends to change that.