Grantee Research Project Results

Final Report: Smartphones to Reduce Food Waste and Insecurity

EPA Grant Number: SU840157
Title: Smartphones to Reduce Food Waste and Insecurity
Investigators: Krupp, Brian , Lebo, Franklin , Marek, Hastings , Fitzgerald, Dan , Medved, Leighton , McDowell, Terrell , Johnson, Dylan , Gifford, Elizabeth , Everly, Autumn , Sheptak, Bronwyn
Institution: Baldwin Wallace University
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: December 1, 2020 through November 30, 2021
Project Amount: $24,180
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2020) RFA Text |  Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Awards , P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities

Objective:

Food insecurity is a significant issue with the national average at 27% on college campuses. At the same time, wasted food on college campuses is well documented with significant savings possible through innovations like tray-less dining (OSU 2016). Rapidly identifying, recovering, and redirecting unused foodstuffs to students in need is therefore critical to improve student health and redress this issue of social inequity. A mobile application would efficiently coordinate food distribution networks that have been hindered by the absence of a centralized hub for sharing information. In this project, therefore, an interdisciplinary team of students has developed a mobile application that will be accessible via Android and iOS that will allow food to be listed and recovered on a college campus. The application will use various sensors on the device to capture descriptions of listed food items and verify that the location of the items are valid locations for retrieval. Similarly, food retrieval is verified using onboard sensors on the device. Through facilitating food retrieval to ensure the greatest agency of the recipient, we expect both wasted food and food insecurity to be reduced on campus. Additionally, by utilizing a peer-to-peer model, we expect the availability of food and the recovery of food will be more accessible and expedient. 

Objective: A sophisticated smartphone app will be created to coordinate food recovery and distribution efforts at universities. The technical challenge involves various requirements in the creation of both an iOS and Android application as well as cross-platform concerns such as registration and authentication, use of sensors on the devices, and deploying a platform that will allow future collaborations within universities and community partners. This app is essential to organize the various stakeholders within a university to reduce waste and insecurity among the student body. This is an innovative approach in utilizing a smartphone application to reduce wasted food and insecurity as no similar approaches at other universities have been identified.  

Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):

The research team has made significant progress in Phase 1 and is ahead of schedule. A key component of the project is how to use smartphones to reduce wasted food and food insecurity. Towards this, two mobile applications for both iOS and Android were created. The mobile applications allow end users to view and reserve food. They incorporate a simple registration process. Users provide their campus email address where they then receive a pin to verify their account. Once registered, the user is able to interact with Campus Plate by viewing and reserving food. Users can be students, faculty, staff, or any other member of the campus community.  
As part of the application development process, usability and user engagement were a primary focus for the team. Before application development began, design mockups were created and reviewed with the team to ensure that the design was intuitive and met the goals of the project. While both mobile applications were developed natively for their respective operating system to maximize usability and user engagement, a consistent experience is provided between both mobile applications. 

To allow both mobile applications to interact with the same data, web services were created. The web services provide functionality to the mobile applications in allowing them to register users, view and reserve food, add and editing listings, and much more. They serve as the central repository for all functions of Campus Plate. Due to the criticality of the web services within Campus Plate, frequent and automated testing was performed as a change to one service could affect the entire system. Additionally, security was a top priority in their development where the team implemented best practices to eliminate vulnerabilities that could be exploited from well-known attacks.  
In addition to the mobile applications, a web portal was also created for use by Food Managers at dedicated Food Stops. The web portal allows Food Managers to manage listings and fulfill reservations. Additionally, if a user does not have the mobile application installed, an order can be placed on demand. If a dedicated Food Stop has food that was not reserved, they also have the capability of moving the food from one Food Stop to another using the web portal. The portal  also allows future administrative functionality to be added such as user management and reporting where food recovery can be examined in detail. 

To better understand what solutions currently exist today, we performed a full literature review and survey of the field. We found that while there are various solutions that address food recovery and food insecurity, the solution we proposed specifically connects consumers of food with the sources of food, where they have the power to choose what food they want to reserve and retrieve that food within a close proximity. Additionally, by utilizing a mobile application, users can view in real time when food is available and retrieve that food immediately.  

Throughout Phase 1, we engaged and partnered with several organizations on campus including: Dining Services, the Brain Center for Community Engagement, the Veterans Center, Residence Life, the Black Cultural Center, and the Lou Higgins Recreation Center. Through this partnership and at the leadership of the Brain Center, we were able to successfully run a pilot release of Campus Plate in the last three weeks of the Spring semester to measure the effectiveness of our approach and learn of potential improvements that would need to be made for a full release in the following Fall semester. Knowing the importance of running a pilot before the end of the semester, the team put in many more hours than expected which allowed the team to start the pilot at week 20, where originally the plan was at week 38, well ahead of schedule. 

For the pilot, food was delivered on a set schedule to dedicated Food Stops throughout the week. Each Food Stop was managed by a dedicated student that received food from Dining Services, entered the food into the Campus Plate system, and fulfilled reservations or on demand food orders. It is important to note that having students be managers enhanced their sense of ownership and encouraged them to become advocates of the solution.  

From the three-week pilot with four food stops, 314 food items were recovered through Campus Plate. Additionally, 50 students were invited to install the iOS application where throughout the pilot, 26 installed the application. As users detected software defects, the team worked quickly to identify, fix, and test solutions where 10 updated versions of the application were relapsed to the team during the three-week period. The pilot is critical to future success of Campus Plate. By releasing the platform with a subset of the campus population, we are able to quickly address any issues in the software or in the processes we established. Through this promising pilot, we have high confidence in the full deployment to the campus community. 

Conclusions:

In a three-week pilot with limited advertising, 314 food items were recovered. We believe with a full campus deployment including, this number will significantly increase. Additionally, with the return of campus events following the pandemic, more food items will be able to be recovered and distributed to the campus. We also anticipate that as more of the campus population becomes aware of the service, adoption will continue to rise. Additionally, the experience the students gained working on this project had a significant impact on their development in allowing them to work in an interdisciplinary team on a significant issue that they may relate to. In addition to the campus sustainability impacts and opportunities for student leadership, this new initiative is a notable addition to a growing network of resources for students facing financial barriers to success. In this short pilot and before completion of Phase 1, we were able to demonstrate through the use of technology and partnerships, we can reduce wasted food and move towards reducing food insecurity on campus. In Phase 2, we will further expand these efforts and demonstrate the effectiveness of Campus Plate in reducing wasted food and food insecurity. 

Journal Articles:

No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 1 publications for this project

Supplemental Keywords:

Food recovery app, food insecurity, food recovery, iOS, Android, smartphone application, community-based food network, conservation, wasted food reduction 

Relevant Websites:

 Campus Plate Exit ,  Computer Science Research Group’s Homepage Exit , Baldwin Wallace University’s News Page Exit