Save Food

Inspiration

Nearly one-third of the food produced globally is wasted, representing a staggering economic loss of around $1 trillion annually. In Sub-Saharan Africa, this figure is even higher, reaching nearly 37% or 120-170 kg per person per year. It's disheartening to see food thrown away in trash cans while many people go hungry. Paradoxically, many households also discard perfectly edible food. These items could easily be redistributed through food banks or shared with neighbors in need. By promoting food donations and raising awareness about food waste, we can help reduce this significant loss and improve food security for all.

What it does

Save Food is a mobile application that connects individuals with surplus food to those in need. It enables users to:

• Share food with neighbors: Users can easily share excess food with people in their community.
• Donate food to food banks: Users can donate food to local food banks and charities.
• Purchase discounted food: Users can buy discounted food from local businesses that have surplus stock.
• Track their impact: Users can track their impact on reducing food waste and supporting their community.
• Receive personalized meal plans: Users can receive personalized meal plans based on the food they have at home, reducing food waste and encouraging healthy eating.

How we built it

We built Save Food using a combination of Flutter for the mobile app and AppWrite for backend services. Key technologies and tools used include:

• Flutter: A cross-platform framework for building native mobile apps.
• AppWrite: A platform for building mobile and web applications.
• Open street Maps API: For location-based features.
• Cloud Appwrite: A NoSQL document database for storing user data and food listings.
• AppWrite Authentication: For user authentication and authorization.
• Stripe and cinetpay : to manage payment.

Challenges we ran into

We faced several challenges during the development of Save Food, including:

• Geolocation accuracy: Ensuring accurate location-based services for food sharing and donation.
• Real-time updates: Maintaining real-time updates for food listings and user notifications.
• User privacy and security: Protecting user data and ensuring secure communication.
• Food Safety: Implementing measures to ensure food safety and prevent the spread of foodborne illnesses.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of the following accomplishments:

• Developing Innovative Features: We've created unique features like personalized meal plans, food recognition, and real-time location-based services to help users discover nearby food sharing opportunities and local businesses.
• Overcoming Technical Challenges: We've successfully addressed complex technical challenges, such as real-time location tracking and machine learning integration.
• Empowering Users: Our app empowers users to take control of their food consumption, reduce waste, and support sustainable practices.

What we learned

• The potential of technology: Technology can be a powerful tool for addressing social and environmental issues.
• The value of collaboration: Collaborating with local businesses and organizations can amplify the impact of our app.
• New Open source applications: Like Appwrite and how to write cloud founction

What's next for Save Food

We have ambitious plans for the future of Save Food, including:

• Expanding to new regions: We plan to expand our app to new regions and countries.
• Partnering with more businesses: We will partner with more businesses to offer a wider range of discounted food options.
• Introducing new features: We will continue to introduce new features to enhance the user experience, such as food waste tracking and personalized recipes.
• Improving the app's performance and scalability: We will continue to optimize the app's performance and scalability to handle a growing number of users.

Built With

• appwrite
• cinetpay
• dart
• flutter
• openstreetmap
• stripe