NutriShare

GIF

About the Project

Inspiration

Indonesia faces two interconnected challenges: food waste and unequal access to nutritious food. Large amounts of edible food from hotels, restaurants, and catering businesses (HoReCa) can become waste, while many social institutions and vulnerable communities still struggle to access adequate nutrition.

This inspired us to ask:

«What if surplus food could be rescued and distributed not only to the nearest beneficiary, but to the people who need its nutritional value the most?»

From this idea, we created NUTRI-SHARE, a nutrition-based food rescue platform that combines food donation management, nutritional analysis, and a data-driven Decision Support System.

Our vision is summarized in one principle:

«Stop Food Waste. Distribute Nutrition.»

NUTRI-SHARE also contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly SDG 2 – Zero Hunger, SDG 3 – Good Health and Well-Being, SDG 10 – Reduced Inequalities, SDG 12 – Responsible Consumption and Production, SDG 13 – Climate Action, and SDG 17 – Partnerships for the Goals.

What it does

NUTRI-SHARE connects surplus food from HoReCa partners with social institutions and communities that need nutritional support.

The platform manages the food rescue process through three main stages:

RESCUE → PRIORITIZE → DISTRIBUTE

First, surplus food is registered along with important information such as food type, quantity, nutritional value, condition, and availability.

Next, NUTRI-SHARE analyzes potential recipients using a Hybrid Entropy-TOPSIS Decision Support System (DSS). The system considers multiple criteria, including:

Nutritional Density
Health Urgency
Food Suitability
Location Coverage
Donation History

Finally, beneficiaries are ranked based on their priority score, helping administrators determine where available food can create the greatest nutritional and social impact.

The platform also provides dashboards for food rescue monitoring, donor management, beneficiary management, nutritional analysis, distribution priorities, logistics, and reporting.

How I built it

We designed NUTRI-SHARE as an integrated web-based platform combining software engineering, nutritional analysis, and Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM).

One of the core components is our Hybrid Entropy-TOPSIS model.

The Entropy method objectively determines the importance of criteria based on the variation within the available data. These weights are then used by TOPSIS to rank potential beneficiaries.

TOPSIS identifies alternatives that are closest to the ideal solution and furthest from the negative-ideal solution.

The final preference value is calculated as:

$$ C_i = \frac{D_i^-}{D_i^+ + D_i^-} $$

where:

(C_i) = preference score of beneficiary (i)
(D_i^+) = distance from the positive ideal solution
(D_i^-) = distance from the negative ideal solution

A higher (C_i) indicates a higher distribution priority.

We also developed an RDA-based nutrition engine to estimate nutritional requirements and compare them with available food resources. This allows NUTRI-SHARE to evaluate food donations based not only on quantity, but also on their nutritional contribution.

The results are transformed into simple dashboards, rankings, nutrition indicators, and distribution information so administrators can understand the recommendations without having to interpret complex mathematical calculations.

Challenges I ran into

One of our biggest challenges was converting a complex real-world social problem into measurable decision criteria.

Food donations vary significantly in quantity, nutritional composition, condition, suitability, and availability. At the same time, beneficiaries have different nutritional requirements, health priorities, locations, and donation histories.

Another challenge was integrating nutrition and logistics into one decision-making model. The highest nutritional priority is not always the easiest destination to reach, so the system needs to consider multiple factors simultaneously.

We also had to make the mathematical model understandable to users. A sophisticated algorithm has limited value if administrators cannot understand its recommendations. Therefore, we focused heavily on transforming complex calculations into clear visual information and actionable rankings.

Building the system also taught us that developing technology for social impact requires balancing technical accuracy, usability, fairness, scalability, and real-world constraints.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

We are proud that NUTRI-SHARE goes beyond being a conventional food donation platform.

Instead of simply matching available food with recipients, we developed a system capable of asking a more meaningful question:

«Who needs this food the most?»

By combining nutritional analysis with Hybrid Entropy-TOPSIS, NUTRI-SHARE provides a transparent and data-driven approach to distribution prioritization.

We are also proud of creating an integrated workflow that connects food rescue, nutrition analysis, beneficiary prioritization, logistics monitoring, and impact visualization within a single platform.

Most importantly, NUTRI-SHARE demonstrates how technology can connect environmental and social problems: rescuing food that might otherwise become waste while simultaneously improving access to nutrition.

What I learned

Building NUTRI-SHARE taught us that meaningful innovation does not always require creating more resources. Sometimes, the challenge is to use existing resources more intelligently.

We learned how Multi-Criteria Decision Making techniques such as Entropy and TOPSIS can transform raw data into actionable recommendations.

We also gained practical experience in integrating algorithms with real-world web applications, designing dashboards, modeling nutritional requirements, managing data flows, and presenting complex calculations in an understandable way.

Most importantly, we learned that technology should not only optimize systems—it should help make decisions fairer, more transparent, and more impactful.

NUTRI-SHARE represents our attempt to transform:

Food Waste → Food Rescue → Nutrition → Better Decisions → Sustainable Impact.