A Mobile application that enables restaurants list their left-over food at discounted rates in Nairobi

A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Mobile Telecommunications and Innovation (MSc. MTI) at Strathmore UniversityFood waste is a huge problem in Kenya and many other countries, in fact, the severity of the problem borders that of climate change and global warming. Institutions in the catering industry such as hotels, restaurants, supermarkets and events caterers prepare food every day that is not all consumed at the end of the day. This is food that is good for human consumption ends ups as waste most times. More to this, most consumers make food orders but end up having leftovers on their plates at the end of their meals. Plate waste and vegetable peeling produced during food preparation process is still consumable by animals such as pigs and dogs, but most times than not, ends up in waste bins rotting. While this amount of food goes to waste, more and more people sleep everyday hungry and even more are said not to have a nutritious food to keep them active and healthy. Food waste contributes to global warming through greenhouse gas emission comparable to that produced from road transport and mitigating it will have a positive impact on climate change. This being the case, there is need to bridge the gap between excess food produced by hospitality institutions and those who need it either for their consumption for human consumable food or animal consumption for left-over food. This study seeks to help manage food waste in the hospitality industry, by creating a platform where hotels, restaurants, supermarkets or just companies in the catering business report excess food and people in need of food sign up and place their orders for both human consumable food and plate waste suitable for animals. The organizations have a choice either give up the food for free or charge a small fee. The study provides data to these organization to help perform predictive analysis on trends with a goal of enabling them know how much is consumed and keep this in mind when preparing food to avoid food wastage. The software methodology used is prototyping model. From research, it was established that in deed food waste is a global problem that needs attention and a mobile application was created as the front end interface that allows users to browse through meals and place orders and a backend that allows restaurants to update the mobile application with meals available for the day