The light-bulb moment
The idea of FoodShare occurred to me when I was holidaying at a seaside resort. A wonderful four day stay enjoying the sun and the sand. During the course of the stay, I enjoyed interacting with the hotel staff getting to know details of the place as well as of the resort. It was in one of those conversations that I came to know that on average about 20% of the food cooked daily remained edible but yet, unconsumed. No, we are not talking about the leftover food from customer plates. We are talking about the extra quantity of food prepared for occasions such as corporate parties, weddings and buffets when usually the amount of food cooked tends to be more than required. The excess more often than not goes to the bin. This magnitude of this food wastage really got me thinking and I started researching it. Should we be wasting such a huge amount of food daily especially when about 9.2% of the population are severely food insecure? Why can't we have some kind of mechanism or a system that can prevent wastage of food and at the same time help feed the hungry? Boom! - FoodShare!!
What FoodShare does
FoodShare provides a platform to share surplus edible food items from establishments such as restaurants, cafes, party halls and other eateries to registered non-profit organizations such as NGOs, orphanages and food banks. The goal of FoodShare is to connect the food donors with the food beneficiaries. We believe that establishing this channel will result in a win-win situation for both the donors as well as the beneficiaries. The platform can be owned and operated by a government food department/agency or any similar public services agency that share the same goals.
How FoodShare works
Food Donors such as restaurants register with the FoodShare mobile app by providing their address and contact details.
There will be a similar registration process for beneficiaries. Once registered, a donor can submit a food donation item using their mobile app. The process is simple -
a. Click submit Donation Item button on the app. Put some basic information about the food items to be donated.
b. Upload a few pictures of the food item and then click the Submit button.
That is it!.
FoodShare then searches for registered food beneficiaries in close proximity (approx 10 km) of the donor using Haversine formula and then sends them a mobile push notification. This notification alerts the beneficiary of the food donation in their area and they can check the details using the FoodShare app.
If the beneficiary feels interested in the food item, they express interest to accept the food donation.
Donor contact details are then shared with the beneficiary to enable both parties to communicate further.
How we built FoodShare
Foodshare uses a mobile app for all end-user interactions. Currently, we have developed a mobile app for the android platform. The system leverages Mulesoft APIs for integrating the various systems such as AWS SNS, RDS and S3.
- AWS SNS - For Mobile Push Notifications using Google Firebase
- AWS S3 - For storing food images that donors upload
- RDS - MySQL version of AWS RDS is used for storing all the data
FoodShare Architecture Diagram
FoodShare - Mulesoft API-led Connectivity FoodShare uses Mulesoft API-led connectivity for seamless data flow across the various systems involved. We have used Cloudhub to deploy all our APIs. Documentation for all the API endpoints is available at the URL - Exchange Documentation
We have maintained a requirements traceability matrix during the course of the entire project and is available at the URL - Traceability Matrix
What's next for FoodShare
- FoodShare Incentives Program - We plan to have an incentive-based model. The incentives earned by donation can hopefully be used for government subsidies or elsewhere.
- Usage of AI/ML - We are also working on using AI/ML to automatically recognize food items. This will minimize the efforts needed to submit a donation item.
- Reporting and Dashboard - This module will help FoodShare management (government agency or public services body) in taking strategic decisions to encourage more donations.
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