MealMart

Inspiration

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, one-third of all food produced around the world is wasted. When the food we waste goes to the landfill and rots, it produces methane-- a greenhouse gas that directly increases global warming.

We realized that majority of food waste is produced by grocery stores. Additionally, about 30 percent of food in American grocery stores is thrown away. That being said, our project’s goal is to reduce global food waste.

What it does

Our (web app/app) connects grocery stores to restaurants and homeless shelters. Grocery stores can donate the produce they are about to throw away to homeless shelters. Similarly, restaurants can purchase non-expired produce from grocery stores. This not only reduces food waste, but also is beneficial to both grocery stores and restaurants. Restaurants can purchase produce at an extremely low price, and grocery stores won’t be forced to throw away food that could be served as potential dishes.

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Throughout the process of curating this idea into a reality, we faced some conceptual and technical roadblocks. For instance, we realized that after creating a Figma mockup, it was a little bit tough to implement onto Swift. This was because only one of us was fluent in Swift (iOS development), whereas the other members weren’t experienced in the language. Then, we resorted to building a web application because more of us were familiar with React. After loads of trials and failures, we resorted to using our Figma prototype and diverted our attention to our mockup. We prioritized building a simple, minimalistic, mockup that’s straight to the point and that we can see being deployed and used by thousands of stores.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Throughout the process, we are honestly proud of the end result. With a time constraint of just 24 hours and teammates in extremely different time-zones (for one its morning, for the other its nighttime), we were still able to manage all that craziness and get a functional project that we are incredibly proud of. Our team ethic was pretty strong despite just meeting from this hackathon, and performed extremely well in extenuating circumstances.

What we learned

Throughout this hackathon, we learned to effectively delegate tasks-- even with the time-zone roadblock. We helped each other throughout the process and consistently gave each other feedback.

What's next for MealMart

-Messaging system. -Reward system for donators. -A special place for sponsors. And most importantly, getting our platform out there to interested grocery stores, restaurants, and homeless shelters willing to participate and as a community, no mo' food waste.