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  •   almost 10 years ago

Tackling Food Wastage

According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), developing countries waste 40 percent food items. Around 1.3 billon tonnes of food is wasted annually all over the world.

The difference in food consumption of the rich and the poor is troubling - the rich having too much and the poor having none. There is a lot of food wasted on a daily basis at weddings and buffets. Instead of wasting all this food, it could be donated to social welfare organizations that work for the less privileged.

A platform can be created to aid communication between the two parties i.e. the institutions donating the food and institutions taking the food to feed the needy.

In addition to this, a social awareness campaign can also be started to educate the people on the need for this, especially the owners of the hotels/restaurants/bakeries etc. as to how they can prevent the food from being wasted and help the less privileged in the process.

  • 18 comments

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    This is indeed a problem if solved can help many to be fed. The challenging part is not just to create a platform but the actual collection and distribution of food. I am thinking of a 2 step process.

    1- In early phase of the campaign, collection will be done manually by reaching all the major food parties i.e. the institutions donating the food and distributing to the institutions taking the food to feed the needy. Social awareness should be done on all major mediums along side with good copy writing skills.

    2- Once ample awareness is there, which can be identified when both parties will reach you asking for refrences; start adding new channels to your platform which can include reward based system or asking for humanitarian funds from renowned social bodies.

    Few questions for you:

    1- Why are you motivated to solve this problem?

    2- How much dedicated you are to solve this problem? Not just for the event but in the longer run?

    3- Do you have any prior experience solving this particular problem?

    4- What expertise you are looking for in your team members?

    Thanks.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    It is an excellent idea. An SMS/Short Code Server platform may be easy to implement and perhaps will have a wide coverage for solving this problem.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    1. My motivation: This idea occurred to me when I witnessed the amount of food wastage at buffets especially during ramadan at iftaars since almost every restaurant was offering them. Instead of wasting all this food, I thought if somehow it could be donated to the less privileged it would be great. Or if someone is already doing it.

    I did some research on it and I came across two initiatives that were doing similar work.
    a. RIZQ (Lahore based) https://www.facebook.com/Rizq.Sharefood/?fref=ts
    b. Food for Thought (Karachi based) https://www.facebook.com/foodforthoughtpk1/?fref=ts

    But nothing of the sort was being done in Islamabad. I wanted to do something but didn't have the team or resources until I came across this civic hackathon. Since, the nature of this event is technology based, that is when I started thinking about how technology can help solve this problem.

    2. I understand that the nature of this problem extends beyond this two-day event. For the platform to be of any use, there is a substantial amount of field work that needs to done e.g. the social awareness campaign, getting institutions on board. I am interested in working for solving this problem and I am hoping this event would be a step in the process.

    3. No, I do not have any prior experience in this.

    4. I am ideally looking for team members who are similarly motivated in solving this problem keeping the bigger picture in mind i.e. following up with it after the event. And also anyone who can lend their expertise in any way in helping us solve this. My experience in programming is mostly limited to backend java so it would be nice to have anyone with full stack experience.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    An SMS/Short Code Server platform is also a very nice idea.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    SMS based query that is sent by those who are in need to get food. They are directed to the nearest hotel which is offering remaining food that is edible for others. Location based mapping of those in need of food and the companies that are offering it.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    Some youth in KP did an experiment by placing Refrigerators in a few major stores in Peshawar and requested people to leave food there to be taken by needy for Iftar in Ramadan. I do not know the details but apparently it worked. Since you are dealing with cooked food which gets rotten very easily and is thus spoiled, the idea of placing refrigerators at know spots doesn't look like a bad idea. I think Deep Freezer's can be freely arranged through beverages companies (they usually do provide) and i am sure large stores would not mind placing these in accessible places. The locations would be known and hence people or hotels would know where to take it.
    Just an idea for discussion.

    Lutfullah Kakakhel

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    If nothing can be done then the best thing would be to collect and recycle it to make poultry feed ;)

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    I was thinking we could have a platform e.g. a web platform where there can be two types of accounts. One for the donors and the other for the takers.

    Donors: There can be a page for the donation offers where donors can post the following info:
    1. Amount of food e.g. food for 50 people
    2. Time limit till when it can be picked (since cooked items will be perishable)
    3. Contact
    4. Address (For simplicity, for now I think we can assume that the donors and takers reside in the isb/rwp and later on we can add location based mapping to the project to extend its scale)

    Once a donor posts this on the forum, all takers that have registered with our app will receive SMS notifications for this donation with the relevant information. These takers can get in touch with a donor to arrange taking the food. Once a deal is complete, the donor will lock the post signifying that the food has been donated.

    Takers: Takers will have a separate account from the donors. They will receive donation information via email/SMS. There will be a page assigned to their posts. E.g. an NGO posts that they need snacks for an event for 50 children and any donors that are willing to help can get in touch with them.

    Let me know what you guys think about this.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    @Lutfullah Kakakhel
    I really like the refrigerator idea. We can maybe do it if this project works out! :)
    Also yes converting the waste food to poultry feed can also be looked into. Anything is better than wastage.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    The idea of a website for donors and takers is definitely right. The only problem I foresee is the Taker's access to it. The donor's might be well aware and would be able to use the app. For takers, however, some middle agency would be required. Poor souls looking for food, mostly children and women, can't be expected to have a knowledge or use of a mobile app. It would be easy to include as permanent takers, known places like orphanages, SOS villages, perhaps some shrines, mosques with boarder students or surroundings of hospitals (have seen a lot outside PIMS/Shifa) etc.
    To reach out to poor homes or individuals may be a bit challenging.
    Good luck.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    it can be a need-based thing as well. It may be advertised like "Sms "food" to XXXX to get to nearest restaurant" .

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    I can help on SMS thing end-to-end. Please ping if interested.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    Why not make this a community project? We can have volunteers from the general public who can act as distributors of the food items. So we have one distributor in maybe a 5km radius and all donors in that radius can send food to this volunteer. He/She can then distribute it accordingly. As for the transportation of food, we can again have volunteers. Each volunteer can save the places that he/she frequents(workplace, college, university) into our database. whenever a donor has some food items he wants to donate, he puts his address into the system and maybe the amount of food he wants to donate. All nearby transport volunteers get a notification that some food needs to be transported. If they are heading out, they can pick up the food and drop it at the nearest distribution center and mark it as delivered.
    So the entire procedure turns into a community effort and becomes self sustaining requiring some initial input to build the software infrastructure and periodic maintenance.
    However, its important to incentivize the process to ensure maximum participation.

    I can handle the front end if you're interested in making a website.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    the idea of dealing with left overs is totally of my kind, i mean this is the problem i literally want to solve or at least do something about it. i totally appreciate the idea and i seriously want to work on it. but of course it needs to be something more something better. there are two types of food wastage... there is a left over when people fill there plates like a mountains of food then doesn't eat all of it and there is left over food in dishes or in kitchens i mean which isn't even touched so the bigger problem is what are we going to do with the left over of first type, 2nd is clean food not JHOOTA .... i guess we should work on both problems.

    i have read above in comments about making a poultry feed from leftovers... so i guess it is the solution to the problem of wasted food i mean leftover in plates (jhoota khana )

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    i am ready to work on this idea. if there are any chances i am in :D

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    I suggest the full identity of both donors and takers must NOT be made public and placed on the website. May be some codes could be generated that may be show on the website.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    is anyone discussing this today? I'm interested to contribute.

  •   •   almost 10 years ago

    Yes, I am. Let me know if you are interested.

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