Reducing Food Waste Using Machine Learning

Function: To build a program/algorithm capable of recognizing unwanted food, categorizing it, and learning patterns in our county in order to better connect restaurants and businesses with excess food with those in need.

Inspiration: Food waste is a terrible thing affecting over 1 in 10 Americans -and 3 times that in Santa Barbara County.

Every evening, at the end of service, restaurants, business, and hotels from across Santa Barbara have enough food to feed hundreds, if not thousands, of people. This biggest issue we face today is that it is easier and more cost effective for them to throw away this unused prepared food, instead of donating it to those who could use it.

My goal is to change this process.

With new technologies like computer vision, we can train computers to recognize food, contact volunteers, and help organize distribution centers where those in need can easily and safely pick up prepared, nutrias food to feed their families.

Methods: This project is in its very early stages, and I have not started to work on the coding portion of it yet. I have spoken with several prominent food recovery advocates, and am working with them to find a solution that solves all of our issues. We are brainstorming ideas, and will soon begin building out the algorithm which will recognize and sort food.

Outcome: My goal is to reduce overall prepared food waste by 10% in our county.

Failures and challenges:

• TBD