In Europe, in 2014, 122 million people (24.4%) were at risk of poverty or social exclusion and among them 55 million (9.6%) were not able to afford a quality meal every second day. At the same time, 90 million tons of food are wasted every year [https://www.eurofoodbank.eu/]. As many other territories in Europe, Asturias produces about 388,200 t/y Mixed Municipal Waste (369 kg/person/year), out of which food waste reaches about 105,600 t/y. Accordingly to the principles of the European hierarchy on waste, prevention should be the first option to reduce such a huge amount of food waste.
COOMIDA (“coFood” in English) is an innovative technological and cooperative tool aimed to ease food donation (including food surplus), thus reducing food waste generation. COOMIDA aims to connect donors, food bank, volunteers, and charities receiving food through a collaborative network for an efficient and sustainable management of food donations. Innovative KDD and gamification approaches aim to boost COOMIDA performances to improve networking and ease decision-making. COOMIDA will be especially powerful in the case of perishable food surplus and small or decentralized donations, which could exceed a conventional food bank management capacity. COOMIDA informs users about the hygienic&sanitary&legal requirements, and will connect donations with charities of the food bank network to ensure that requirements are met.
COOMIDA (stage 1) will be launched during EWWR 2016, presenting the new tool to the society and collecting expressions of interest of citizens and organisations, in order to create the cooperation network in Asturias. This COOMIDA community will be essential in following months for development of COOMIDA’s performances: food surplus donation and decentralized donation management.