Testing the Hypothesis 7A

1. The opportunity I would like to pursue is an idea about how to limit food waste in the US. Incredibly Americans waste $160 billion dollars in food each year which equates to about 35% percent of the entire US food supply. This leaves an ungodly amount of quality food going to the garbage instead of being consumed by the many impoverished and needy people in our communities. The trouble lies in the fact of transporting the goods before they are wasted and can no longer be eaten. Unfortunately, there is only a limited amount of time that the food is good for and it is difficult to get it into the hands of those that need it. The opportunity lies in a way to effectively deliver these goods to those who need them. Luckily, most communities have at least one nonprofit organization as well as churches in the community. Many of these organizations rely on donations to feed the homeless and needy that come to them. My idea is to create a website and or app that can connect companies and the general public to organizations that can use the excess food and give it out to needy people. This site could allow people with excess food or food that is set to be expired to send out a picture and a location of the food to the organizations to then be able to send someone to pick up the food. This could be an excellent way for restaurants, grocery stores, and the general public to support needy people in the community with food that would have normally been wasted. Companies could potentially receive tax write offs for the food they donate and become a valuable part of the community by donating unneeded food.



2. The people that need this are nonprofit organizations that feed needy people as well as churches with food pantries and community outreach programs.

These organizations need donations to feed other people and other companies have no need for the unwanted food.

There are challenges for the nonprofits to be able to receive the food and challenges for the companies to get the food to their hands. This idea would help eliminate those challenges and easily connect nonprofits to opportunities to receive more donations.

3. The other people that could use this could be people below the poverty line, soup kitchens, unemployed people, missionary groups, disaster relief programs

Some nonprofits have a good source of donations and may not need to use this program. Additionally, some companies may already have a system to deal with their excess food and products.

There could be some hold ups to the program if people tried to abuse the system and take the products without having a genuine need. There could be issues regarding transporting the products to the needed areas. People would have to volunteer from the nonprofit organizations to pick up the good or they could possibly use a ridesharing service to pick up and deliver goods. It is possible that some companies may volunteer to deliver the goods on some circumstances, but most companies will not want to deal with any burden that does not contribute to their bottom line.

4. After talking to and interviewing various homeowners, business owners, and non-profit employees, there were a couple of interesting things that stood out. I think that some of the non-profits do not see the need for this company. Some of them get plenty of donations from various sources and do not need extra donations that they would have to go out and get. I think that the problem for some of them is finding the time to go pick up the donations from various companies or homes. However, some non-profits already own vehicles and have volunteers that go pick up donations. These people seemed much more on board for the idea. They would love to have more opportunities to pick up to be able to distribute. Most of the general public I talked to said they would love a way to see what nonprofits are needing so that they could donate materials that were needed and donate goods that they do not have a need for. An easy way to see what materials are needed for donations intrigued many homeowners who want to help in the community. The people I had the toughest time getting firsthand information from were grocery stores and restaurants. I did some research and found that many of them donate excess goods, but it was difficult to talk to people that make those decisions locally. I think that overall the feedback was positive, but not overwhelmingly so. I think that there was enough positive feedback to continue to pursue this idea and change it as needed.

5. In conclusion, I feel like there is a great need to eliminate waste and help those who are struggling to put food on the table. I think that this idea has merit, but for it to be successful in more than a couple communities, it would take significant investment in order to create a networking and notification interface. However, the opportunity still exists locally to connect non-profits to local companies and homeowners to alert them of needs and local donations.