EcoEats (table 64)

Inspiration

The food industry's carbon footprint is 17% of the total footprint of the world. This is not acceptable - which is why we wanted to make an application that shows people the impact of the food they eat.

What it does

It brings environmental scores to the food you buy - all available with a simple scan of the barcode.

How I built it

We built this application around the open food facts api, and created it in 2 parts - the front end and back end. The front end scans a barcode using a phone camera, which is then sent to the backend, where the API determines what the barcode corresponds to, and then sends this result to a database (MongoDB) to find its relative sustainability scores, sourced from Rank a Brand.

Challenges I ran into

Poor documentation of the API and debugging.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

The collaboration involved (and the staying up all night!)

What I learned

We learnt a great deal about the environment and sustainability - we didn't realise how bad the carbon footprint really is at all. It opened our eyes to food miles and investments the companies make, and through this app, we aim to help others come to the same realisation we did.

What's next for EcoEats

We want to encourage people to buy more sustainably sourced food, and therefore would like to expand our database to a greater range of products and supermarkets. We would also like to increase the accuracy of the scanner and information provided.

Built With

• css
• html
• javascript
• mongodb
• node.js
• openfoodfacts