#LoveFoodHackWaste: Interview with eatqi, the Winners of the BCGDV Food Waste Hackathon
Our #LoveFoodHackWaste event brought together an eclectic mix of more than 80 technologists, entrepreneurs and product ideators to hack a solution to help mitigate food waste. We asked the winners to take us through their idea.
Can we use technology to mitigate the issue of food waste? This was the question we asked a mix of passionate developers, product managers, designers and entrepreneurs at our recent #LoveFoodHackWaste hackathon at our DV Berlin center.
Some great ideas emerged after three days of hard work. Thank you to all our talented and dedicated hackers for their time and effort in working on an important issue.
But, inevitably, there could only be one winner. Our judges, a diverse panel that included not just representatives from DV but also those already working on the issue of food waste at SIRPLUS, picked eatqi.
eatqi enables individuals to combine ingredients that would otherwise go to waste and suggests recipes that they can cook together. It helps reduce food waste and also brings individuals together.
Rather than explain it ourselves, we wanted to hear from eatqi in their own words. So we caught up with Sahra Malin, one of the winning hackers behind eatqi, to tells about her experience.
BCGDV: Why is food waste such an important issue to you?
Sahra Malin, eatqi: Food waste is an important issue due to the environmental impact it has. Food waste means overproduction, indicating that we have made inefficient use of our already-scarce water supplies. Combining this with the fact that approximately 10% of our global population suffers from hunger, wasting food is just not a very rational thing to do. I know this, and I feel guilty when I waste food, yet I personally continue to do so.
This is why the hackathon was a great opportunity to solve both a global and a personal problem. I wanted to understand why I, and people like me, waste food despite knowing the negative impact of this behavior.
One of the causes we identified was the fact that we often buy ingredients in supermarkets that come in packages that are not designed for single households. We’ve all had times where we wanted to cook a specific recipe, which requires you to buy special ingredients, of which you end up using only a small portion. When you then use websites to look up other recipes for the remaining ingredients, there tend to be too many missing ingredients that you don’t have at home.
How does your solution work?
Our solution, eatqi, focuses on the end consumer who doesn’t know what to do with leftover ingredients or doesn’t feel motivated to cook for just one person.
We built a platform that enables individuals to host events in their kitchen and set up cooking events with their leftover ingredients for people in the neighbourhood. Individuals can then browse what cooking events are happening in their area and request to join, bringing the leftover ingredients they have at home with them. eatqi provides dynamic recipe suggestions based on the available leftover ingredients, and these update automatically as soon as a new participant signs up for the event. After the event, you can then see your own impact on how much food you’ve saved collectively.
Why do you think your solution would be effective?
eatqi is a play on the Chinese word Yi qi, which means “together”. It tackles two growing problems in our society: Food waste and loneliness. In Germany alone, 39% of food waste is generated by the end consumer while two-thirds of the population believes the country has a major problem with loneliness.
By helping individuals connect with those in their neighbourhood, we hope to help build communities that make more efficient use of their food. There is a true connection that happens when people come together to share food in an intimate setting, and this connection is what eatqi tries to foster and embody.
Moreover, we believe that these cooking events will help educate people in a fun and relaxed setting on food waste and how they themselves can actually save food. We have also incorporated features that will help drive revenue streams to sustain our platform without taking away from the user experience and the purpose of the platform.
What was the hardest part of the hackathon for you?
The hardest thing was dealing with the time pressure and the lack of sleep that came with it…
What did you learn?
I learned how much you can accomplish with a balanced team, real passion, and time pressure. We had an idea on Friday evening and managed to build a product and business model around it by Sunday morning.
What was your favorite part of the hackathon?
This was my first time participating in a hackathon and I enjoyed both the positive energy that people brought and the quality and multitude of ideas that were presented. There was a beautiful can-do atmosphere that was really inspiring.
