CASE STUDY
FoodFluence
A community for quick, convenient meal planning on a budget.
What if you were in a position that you didn’t know where your next meal was going to come from? What if you lived paycheck to paycheck and constantly had to worry about the finances adding up? This is the reality for a lot of people! Busy individuals need a way to conveniently and quickly meal plan without running out of their allocated budget.
Timeline: 32 Weeks
The Process
Discover
After spending time interviewing 63 people and talking with several local food pantries, we uncovered a unique insight: people with food insecurity are taxed with the mental stress of meal planning on a budget, while at the same time there are other people who make too much food and end up throwing away their leftovers. That’s where FoodFluence was born – at the center of convenience, technology, and community.
Create
Our team started to roughly sketch out what this experience might entail. We went through several iterations of trying to connect the various aspects and key stakeholders of the community with each other and the cheapest retail options as a full-service solutions provider. We brought these iterations back to our users to continue to get feedback and learn more about how they would interact with a standalone app. “I have always been looking for something like FoodFluence in the app store. This would solve my issue of having to check my bank account every time before making any shopping trips,” said Jett, a sophomore Physics major at The University of Arkansas.
Launch
There are so many people in this community and on this campus focused on food insecurity, we are looking at who the best partners would be to transition this over to an activated platform. We have considered with platforms such as Nextdoor, the world’s largest social network for neighborhoods. FoodFluence and Nextdoor could enable truly local conversations that empower NWA to build healthier and safer communities. Moreover, we have also thought of making it a standalone app that could be easily paired and used with major social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
The Team
Smit Patel
Biomedical Engineering
Zain Blackwell
Biomedical Engineering
Nicholas Coluccino
Computer Science
Alexandra Vega
Biomedical Engineering
Anri Kihara
Marketing & Enterprise Resource Planning
Caitlin Laney
Supply Chain Management
Dylan Metheny
Information Systems
John Haney
Civil Engineering
Kiara Agosto
Biomedical Engineering
Sam Woodie
Supply Chain Management
Partners/Mentors
