SAVOR: surplus food to people who need it

The problem

Restaurants throw away food that could feed people nearby. The waste and the hunger sit in the same neighborhoods, and nothing connects them. Perfectly edible food is discarded because there is no system to manage it and move it before it spoils.

Research

I interviewed four kinds of food business to see where surplus actually appears. Durvankur, a restaurant serving 200 to 250 people a day and 450 on weekends, donates edible leftovers to local charities and pays to dispose of the rest. The MIT WPU canteen cooks for 300 to 350 people, hits its peak between 12 and 2, and sends dustbin waste to the municipal corporation. A meat shop runs on almost zero waste, selling legs and cut pieces to pet owners and returning skin and feathers to the poultry farm. A dairy showed me the collection chain from farmers to tankers to the city center, and the cold storage and hygiene rules that govern it.

Interview notes from a restaurant, a canteen, a meat shop and a dairy, with photos of a thali and a dairy pasteurization machine — Insights from the four interviews: crowd management, hygiene, waste handling and supply patterns.

I clustered the findings by business type, then drew causal maps to trace how food ends up as waste. Restaurants source their pantry twice a week, so shelf life is short by the time a dish is prepared. Vegetable vendors buy in bulk every morning and discard what does not sell. At home, people buy more than they need because larger quantities are cheaper, and the surplus spoils in the fridge.

Causal map connecting domestic food behavior, restaurant sourcing and untreated waste — Causal map: three chains that end in waste.

Three feedback loop diagrams: ingredient supply affecting restaurant sales, the restaurant, and food quality — Feedback loops. Donating surplus can improve a restaurant's standing and demand, which is the lever the app pulls.

The solution

An application that connects restaurants with people who lack access to food. Restaurants log the type and quantity of food they can donate. Volunteers pick it up and deliver it to dedicated donation spots that are visible on a map. Every delivery earns coins that can be used for discounts, and streaks and badges keep both restaurants and volunteers motivated.

Decisions

Two sign-ins, one flow each

A restaurant and a volunteer want different things, so the app asks which you are on the first screen and never mixes the two. A restaurant sees a single question, "Do you have some food to donate?", and a history of past posts. A volunteer sees restaurants nearby with an Accept button on each.

Posting food in under a minute

Posting is a short form: veg or non-veg, for people or for animals, quantity, pickup time and expiry. The expiry field is what makes the delivery safe, so it sits on the form rather than in a settings screen.

Restaurant side on the left, volunteer side on the right. The volunteer screen confirms who accepted the donation and when they will arrive.

Delivery as a map, not a list

Once a volunteer accepts, the app switches to a map with the route to the donation spot, a review step with photos, and a profile that tracks points and a two-week streak.

Final SAVOR screens angled in perspective over a dark background — Volunteer details, restaurant list, live delivery map, profile with reviews, and the streak tracker.

What I would do next

Test the posting form with the two restaurant managers I interviewed, and time it. Then test whether coins and streaks actually change volunteer behavior, or whether a simple thank-you from the restaurant does the same job.