AI-Powered Smart Platform for Surplus Food Waste Management to Reduce Hunger and Promote Sustainability

Abstract

Food insecurity and food wastage exist side by side in India, creating a paradox that has proved difficult to resolve through informal means alone. Current estimates suggest close to 40 per cent of food produced in the country never reaches a consumer, while over 190 million people go without adequate nutrition. The absence of any organized mechanism connecting those with surplus food to those who can distribute it is at the heart of the problem. This paper describes Plate-bridge, a web-based platform developed to bridge this gap by connecting food donors with verified (Non-Governmental organization) NGO through a centralized, real-time digital system. Donors can list surplus food using a simple form, and NGO can browse available donations, reserve items, and track pickups through a dedicated portal. An integrated AI chat-bot named Plate-bot, built on the Llama 3.3 70 B language model through the Grok API, assists users across the platform. The system is built on the MERN stack, uses MongoDB Geo-spatial indexing for proximity-based search, and enforces security through JWT based authentication and role-specific access controls. Testing confirmed that all modules performed reliably and that the platform can serve as a practical tool for reducing food wastage at a community level.

Introduction

The document presents Plate-Bridge, a web-based food donation coordination platform designed to address India’s large-scale problem of simultaneous food waste and hunger. It highlights that a major cause of food waste is not lack of supply or willingness, but poor coordination between donors and NGOs, leading to edible surplus food being discarded due to delays and lack of communication.

Plate-Bridge solves this by providing a centralized MERN-stack platform where donors (registered or guest) can quickly list surplus food, and verified NGOs can discover and reserve nearby donations using MongoDB geo-spatial search. The system includes an admin verification layer, ensuring NGO authenticity and donation trustworthiness, along with dashboards for monitoring activity and analytics.

Key features include real-time donation tracking, automated expiry of listings, secure JWT-based authentication, role-based access control, and a reservation system that prevents conflicts. It also integrates an AI chatbot (Plate-bot using Grok API) to assist users and improve accessibility.

The system uses a three-tier architecture (React front-end, Express back-end, MongoDB database) and follows an Agile development approach. Geo-spatial queries enable fast location-based matching, and background jobs ensure data freshness by removing expired listings.

Conclusion

[1] United Nations, Sustainable Development Goal 2 – Zero Hunger Initiative, UN SDG, 2015. [Online]. Available: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal2 [2] S. Shubham, R. Shruthi and M. Vinay, A Smart Food Donation System Using Mobile Technology to Reduce Food Waste, International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology, vol. 8, no. 5, 2019. [3] A. Mohammed Shafi, S. Anusha and R. Deepika, Web-Based Application for Food Waste Management, International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, vol. 29, no. 7, 2020. [4] P. Vignesh, K. Harish and T. Divya, Web-Based Food Donation and Redistribution System to Minimize Food Waste and Support NGOs, International Journal of Computer Applications, 2021. [5] Wan Abdul Rahim Wan Mohd Isa, Ahmad Iqbal Hakim Suhaimi, Nurulhuda Noordin and Nurul Nadia Taslim, FoodRescue: Excess Food Donation Mobile Application, MADLC Methodology, 2022. [6] V. Sarvasri Sowmya Lakshmi, M. N. V. Surekha, P. Sasi Sanjana, R. Jyothi Sai Durga and M. Charan Sri Sai, Share and Care: A Food Donation Web Application, International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, vol. 9, no. 2, Feb. 2024, pp. 74–82. [7] Meta AI, Llama 3.3: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models, Meta AI Research, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://ai.meta.com/llama [8] MongoDB Inc., Geospatial Queries, MongoDB Atlas Documentation, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/geospatial-queries [9] Express.js Foundation, Express.js – Fast, Un-opinionated Web Framework for Node.js, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://expressjs.com [10] Groq Inc., Groq API Documentation, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://console.groq.com/docs

References

[1] United Nations, Sustainable Development Goal 2 – Zero Hunger Initiative, UN SDG, 2015. [Online]. Available: https://sdgs.un.org/goals/goal2 [2] S. Shubham, R. Shruthi and M. Vinay, A Smart Food Donation System Using Mobile Technology to Reduce Food Waste, International Journal of Engineering Research and Technology, vol. 8, no. 5, 2019. [3] A. Mohammed Shafi, S. Anusha and R. Deepika, Web-Based Application for Food Waste Management, International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, vol. 29, no. 7, 2020. [4] P. Vignesh, K. Harish and T. Divya, Web-Based Food Donation and Redistribution System to Minimize Food Waste and Support NGOs, International Journal of Computer Applications, 2021. [5] Wan Abdul Rahim Wan Mohd Isa, Ahmad Iqbal Hakim Suhaimi, Nurulhuda Noordin and Nurul Nadia Taslim, FoodRescue: Excess Food Donation Mobile Application, MADLC Methodology, 2022. [6] V. Sarvasri Sowmya Lakshmi, M. N. V. Surekha, P. Sasi Sanjana, R. Jyothi Sai Durga and M. Charan Sri Sai, Share and Care: A Food Donation Web Application, International Journal of Innovative Science and Research Technology, vol. 9, no. 2, Feb. 2024, pp. 74–82. [7] Meta AI, Llama 3.3: Open Foundation and Fine-Tuned Chat Models, Meta AI Research, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://ai.meta.com/llama [8] MongoDB Inc., Geospatial Queries, MongoDB Atlas Documentation, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/geospatial-queries [9] Express.js Foundation, Express.js – Fast, Un-opinionated Web Framework for Node.js, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://expressjs.com [10] Groq Inc., Groq API Documentation, 2024. [Online]. Available: https://console.groq.com/docs

Copyright

Copyright © 2026 Dr. Sheryl Radley, Sanjay D, Saravanan P, Srinath Bala P K, Sriram N. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.