Food insecurity is a real concern in the USA: during 2020, at least 10% of the households had food insecurity for some time of this year (https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/#:~:text=In%202020%2C%2089.5%20percent%20of,from%2010.5%20percent%20in%202019. There are governmental programs (county-, state-, and federal-level) dealing with it, but what sort of financial planning support are the households receiving? An app that optimizes the food choices on food pantries, aiming to save the most money on SNAP cards, would help these families to make better choices of food.
Food pantries are widespread in the USA and help millions of people to keep their pantries with more food. In combination with programs like SNAP (former Food Stamps) and WIC, they provide support for households with low income, which is composed mainly of families with young children, people with disabilities, and elders. But how do the households choose their food? Given that SNAP provides an amount of money each month for each household, how can this be optimized considering dietary restrictions?
- Problem 1: people don't know what to choose and resource heavily processed food because it is ready to eat. In this app, the choices offered will depend on the type of diet chosen by the person responsible for the household's food. This app aims to help the households to choose the food on food pantries in order to maximize their food input, considering dietary restrictions. By dietary we mean minimal input of nutrients per person in the household, choice of diet according to a style of cooking (diabetics, children under growing phase, persons with a disability on the household, etc).
- Problem 2: people have a difficult time trying to cook with unknown ingredients. This app also will provide suggestions of menus with easy recipes, optimizing the time used to prepare the food, and tips on how to store the food. These recipes can be on Youtube, blogs, and can be curated by volunteers from the Food Pantries across the country.
- Problem 3: people have problems accessing stores because of distance, so they purchase their food nearby spending more money per unit of food. This app will have a hub where other households will be able to combine collective purchases, using their SNAP benefits, in order to save by the bulk. In this area, there will be also flyers from the regional grocery markets and coupons for several brands.
The person in the household responsible for shopping the food can use this app to choose the items in a food pantry that maximize the amount of money saved on the household's SNAP benefits. This person will have a "shopping" list, with the periodicity the person chooses, and when in a food pantry, the person can check if the items shopped fit in this list and, if provided substitutions, what substitutions are the optimal ones to the list that results in more money saved in the household's SNAP card. The app also will provide forums where other people can exchange recipes (that can be stored in the household storage area), group purchases, a hub with promotions and leaflets with prices from the local area grocery markets, and so on.
The prices of items could be sourced from online supermarkets across the country, according to zip code restrictions. The dietary suggestions can be sourced on websites from the government, universities, manufacturers, etc. To be developed.
Make people understand that the time spent planning food shopping and cooking for your household has in return better health, more savings, a larger lifespan, and put in practice life skills that are worthy to learn.
Integration with food blogs, Youtube channels, dietitians, medical doctors, financial advisors.
The wonderful volunteers from my church and all other volunteers from religious and secular places that I met had the opportunity to talk about their challenges. The series Struggle Meals, from chef Frankie Celenza on Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/c/strugglemeals) is also a great inspiration.