CommuniEats | Devpost

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Inspiration

40% of all food is wasted worldwide, and of that estimated 1.3 billion tonnes of food wasted every year, most of it is perfectly edible and nutritious. Solving this problem would not only aid in fighting food insecurity in households, but it would also alleviate the massive environmental strain caused by this issue. Food waste ends up in landfills where it breaks down to form methane, a greenhouse gas that is 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Moreover, about 6%-8% of all human-caused greenhouse gases can be reduced if we stop wasting food. To tackle this problem, we’ve created CommuniEats, a proactive solution that saves perfectly good food from being wasted in places like bakeries, restaurants, and grocery stores just because it wasn’t sold in time. We were inspired by apps like “FoodHero” and "Too Good To Go" that help fight food waste. However, most solutions are not very accessible and we wanted to provide not only a more affordable solution, but also encourage meaningful collaboration between users and their communities to foster a deeper sense of connection with those around you.

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What it does

CommuniEats connects users looking for more affordable and accessible food options around them with businesses (restaurants, grocery stores, etc.) that have a surplus of food that would otherwise go to waste. CommuniEats not only helps combat the food waste issue, but it also tackles food insecurity by offering free/ discounted food choices to users around them. Businesses also gain great benefits like reduced food wastage while generating revenue and getting exposure to new potential customers.

The mobile app welcomes the user with a sign-in page, where you can either sign in, make a new account, or head to the business side of the app where businesses are able to put up any food available. Upon logging in, the user’s location is tracked and the map can provide nearby places offering food, where the user can get help from filters in the drop-down menu on finding the food of their choice. Here we are choosing fast food and various restaurants around us with similar offerings would show up. Barakat has two shawarmas available for pickup at the moment, where the user can click on their choice and pick it up within 2 hours. There is also a market view that shows a more categorical view of nearby food available, either for free or discounted. The forum is an important feature of the app that allows for tracking the progress of food waste saved within your community as well as shows nearby food conservation related events and programs to create a great sense of community and engagement. To make this solution as accessible as possible, a supporting web app promoting CommuniEats accompanies the mobile app, where the website shows some of the functionality available in the app and teaches how CommuniEats benefits users, businesses and communities.

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How we built it

We utilized Figma and Canva for graphic design and building high-fidelity wireframes, our mobile app prototype was built. The application was designed with user-friendly interface kept in mind to make it as accessible and easy to use as possible. We used JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap to build the website and stylize it, and Mapbox API for the maps and to show food options near the user’s location.

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Challenges we ran into

We ran into many challenges in designing and developing, where one was displaying the map with the user’s location and surrounding pins where we ultimately used Mapbox. It was also hard to implement Cockroach Serverless in our app to track food donations and users, as there was some initial work done but no full functionality. We also wanted to make the app as easy to use as possible, so clear and optimal designs and visuals were implemented in the app.

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Accomplishments that we're proud of

We are proud of making a useful application that can have real-world impacts and bring us one step closer to saving the environment and a sustainable future. We are also proud of the attention to detail of the animation and the visual palette used which brought the project together.

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What's next for CommuniEats

We plan to provide greater outreach with the CommuniEats app by collaborating with universities and organizations that value environmental sustainability and saving food waste. We would also like to add more social aspects like connecting with friends and an online community forum. We can also expand on the tracking aspect of our app to provide more data and analytics to encourage users further.