A Better Meal Review

A Better Meal was conceptually a good idea, but I can't see this being able to really work out. When the group first mentioned taking the excess food from restaurants at the end of the day, I immediately threw up a red flag. I remember asking my dad about why restaurants throw out so much food when I was a bit younger and I don't remember exactly what he said. However, I did look this up and, as mentioned during their project, there are really no laws against good faith food donations. The problem comes in because of liability concerns. If any of the food they donate causes harm or sickness to anyone, the restaurant can be sued. So the biggest feat in that area would be convincing chains and restaurants that they won't be held possibly liable.

The receipt scanner was a really unique idea. Getting notifications when you're food reached close to its expiration date makes it a lot easier to keep up with what you really have available. Having links to meals you can make with these items is so handy. My problem with that is donating it to food banks. I respect and agree with the statement the group made about any little thing being able to help, but I don't think it's right to donate basically spoiled food. Where is the good in giving someone what is essentially garbage?

The Lyft ride is somewhat flawed. Mainly for funding and demand. This app would have to be very widely used for there to be enough demand regularly to have lyft drivers making these trips and then not even getting paid for them. I definitely think that this pickup service could and should happen but the drivers would have to be employed directly and specifically through the organization. Any other way would cause to much hassle for the driver and for A Better Meal.

The only other thing that kinda bothered me was the fact that this idea wasn't really targeted at our age group. Not many college student are buying groceries right now, and if they are, they are buying close to exactly what they are planning to use. This application would have to be for someone more stable into their career and probably with a family. And then, I don't think this audience would really take the time out to keep their receipt and actually take action when they get this notification to their phone. Other than theses fixes, which I do believe can be worked around, the concept could be very fruitful.