Hi, Melissa
Your “Food Trooper Smart Food Kit” idea is a great way to get kids involved in helping this problem. The badge magnets are a cute idea for children. Parents can hang them on refrigerators for an easy and fun way to keep track of what they eat. It is also important to plant these ideas in the next generations heads. This will help solve the problem of food waste through each generation.
You mentioned wanting ideas on how to fund this idea. My first idea was to use the funding schools get for after school programs. This would work if you wanted to help out a few towns. If you want to take this idea nationwide I would consider reaching out to Michelle Obama. Michelle Obama does a lot of work on helping children learn about nutrition. Your “Food Trooper Smart Food Kit” might be of interest to her and her after school programs. I suggest writing a letter to her to see if she could help fund this idea. That could get your idea inlisted in schools curriculums nationwide.
Goodluck getting your idea up and running,
Hannah Butland

Hi Maryia Virshych,
Your idea on adding a portion control chart to a shopping cart to make people more aware of the amount they buy is a great idea for this challenge. I wanted to share with you what problems I think you might encounter to help you improve this idea.
The first problem is, that you would need to go through the entire store and make a portion pie chart for every produce. This will be time consuming especially since I see you are working on this idea as an individual. You will need to hire a team of people to help you, which brings the problem of finding volunteers or having to pay people. Paying people would mean you need funding.
Another problem you will face is estimating the general portion side for each food. The problem with making a general portions chart is everyone of your customers is different. Some customers will be able to eat more food than others. You should give more thought to the process you will be using to determine portions.
You might find making this popular amongst the people is going to be a challenge. People nowadays are busy. Even though this idea is great for portion control, helping lessen food waste, people will have a hard time putting in effort to use this chart. A majority of people aren’t worried about throwing away food so motivating people to want to use this chart will be a challenge in advertising for you. Why would someone take the time to fill out a chart when they can just grab a certain amount and call it good. You will have to convince people it is worth their time. This is just something to think about when you are pitching your idea.
What I liked about your idea was that the chart was mounted on the cart in front of them making it easy to access. This might help with the problem that I brought up previously. If the chart is given to them, they are more likely to use it than if they have to buy it or download it. The problem with this though is you’re going to have to find funding to launch this since you won’t make a profit. I’m interested in hearing your ideas on funding since it wasn’t mentioned in your post.
Best of Luck
-Hannah Butland

Hi Luis,
I was intrigued to read your idea from your the “Food Karma.” Karma, what goes around comes around, is something I’ve always lived by when it came to doing selfless acts. Your idea of giving people giftcards if they deliver food I don’t see as a selfless act, I see it as bribing.
Why spend money on gift cards to bait people to do help out delivering food to their community, when the act of being a good person should be incentive enough? That is a waste of money. We can’t solve food waste by creating a different waste.
I understand nowadays people need incentive to motivate them to do things but we must find another way to get people to help out. It feels wrong to fund this by bribe when people should do good deeds for free. Let’s find a way to engage volunteers to deliver the food without the reward. This way it benefits the community more because you aren’t spending the money to give them the gift card.
Advertising is key in this situation. A possible solution would be putting up flyers to attract do gooders who want actual karma points. I hope this advice was helpful to you.

Sincerely,
Hannah Butland