Food waste
Crumbs
Crumbs is a community-based solution that addresses the food waste problem by increasing reach and demand of clearance discounts, reducing wastage of bakery products.
Meet the team
We are a group of NUS students passionate about building technology for social good! Our mission is to unite community and businesses in our collective fight against food waste while educating everyone along the way. Follow us on this exciting journey and be a part of our bid to make a difference!
Team members: Sun Ruiheng (Software Engineer/Product), Tan Guan Quan (Software Engineer), Justin Wong Jian Hui (Software Engineer), Jessica Tay Jing Yun (Design/Product)
Problem statement
In 2022, food waste accounted for 11% of total waste generated in Singapore at 813,000 tonnes, with a recycling rate of only 18%. In particular, bakeries discard unsold baked goods at the end of each working day due to overproduction and the perishable nature of baked goods.
Disposal is the most convenient and cost-effective option, resulting in significant food waste despite the goods still being consumable. Food from the Heart, a local food bank committed to battling hunger, collects 28,000 kg of bread waste as part of its Bread Run programme alone. Demand for such baked goods should be scaled accordingly in real time to sell goods that need to be urgently cleared.
Proposed Solution
Crumbs is a community-based solution that addresses the food waste problem by increasing reach and demand of clearance discounts, reducing wastage of bakery products. Anyone can share when they find a “lobang”, which will be tagged to its specific location and can be viewed by nearby users available to take advantage. Via crowdsourcing information about discounts, Crumbs creates a collaborative environment where everyone can share new deals and work towards reducing food waste as a community.
To further engage our users, our stretch goals will include incorporating gamification elements into our solution. Users can earn points and badges for various activities like posting deals or engaging with the community, providing an extra layer of motivation for them to interact with the platform, similar to badges on Tripadvisor. We also look to collaborate with bakeries themselves to improve our reach and credibility, adding more robustness to the social element of our platform while giving bakeries recognition in the fight against food waste.