Surplus to Supper

🌱 Inspiration

Every day, tons of edible food is wasted by restaurants and stores while families in the same neighborhoods go hungry.
We wanted to create something simple, impactful, and community-driven that could bridge this gap.
The idea behind Surplus to Supper was to turn wasted meals into shared meals and make food redistribution accessible with just a few clicks.

⚡ What it Does

• Donors (restaurants, cafes, grocery stores) can post surplus food.
  
• Nonprofits and families can instantly claim meals via a live feed.
  
• The app provides a transparent and easy way to reduce waste and fight hunger.
  
• Even in MVP form, it shows how technology can connect communities around food security.
  

🛠️ How We Built It

• Frontend: React + TypeScript, powered by Vite for fast builds.
  
• UI/UX: Tailwind CSS + shadcn-ui for clean, responsive design.
  
• Deployment: Vercel for hosting and instant previews.
  
• Workflow: GitHub for version control and collaboration.
  

🚧 Challenges We Faced

• Balancing scope vs. time: deciding which features to include in the MVP while leaving room for future growth.
  
• Ensuring a clear user experience with minimal steps from donation to claim.
  
• Handling deployment quirks with Vercel and making sure the build ran smoothly.
  

🎉 Accomplishments and What We Learned

• We built a working MVP that already demonstrates real impact potential.
  
• Learned to prioritize features to deliver fast and focus on storytelling instead of over-engineering.
  
• Gained insight into how technology intersects with food security, and how small tools can drive social good.
  

🔮 What’s Next

• AI-powered food matching (predicting who needs which type of donation).
  
• Volunteer logistics coordination for pickups and deliveries.
  
• Multilingual support to include more communities.
  
• Partnerships with nonprofits and municipalities for wider adoption.
  

Mathematically speaking, if ( F_w ) is food wasted and ( F_n ) is food needed, then our mission is to minimize ( F_w - F_n ) through better redistribution.

Built With

• node.js
• npm
• react
• shadcn-ui
• tailwind
• typescript
• vercel
• vite