Food Saving App Wins ImpactX Contest

The designers of an app that focuses on saving food and saving money won the 2019 ImpactX Demo Day contest held on April 22, 2019.

The pitch competition is an annual event where student teams work together to create and present a unique business idea to a panel of judges in the hopes of capturing a portion of the $10,000 business seed money. A total of six teams, comprised of 18 students, competed in this year’s competition.

Candace Pfister, an economics and political science double major, Daphne Lerner, a commercial real estate finance major, and Tristan Soliven, a business administration major, took home the top prize for their app Foodfighter. Pfister says the group came up with the app after discovering the discrepancy between the number of Americans who face hunger and the amount of food consumers throw away every day.

“The research we did about each food insecurity and food waste showed us that these two issues are linked,” Pfister explains. “This is why Foodfighter aims to tackle both issues at the same time.”

She says the lifestyle app uses predictive analytics to track food waste, improve shopping and save money.

“At Demo Day the student founders of Foodfighter nailed the presentation and equally importantly fielded questions from the judges with confidence,” says Chris Starr, associate professor of information management.

Pfister says the group’s next step is to continue developing the app and form partnerships. They hope to formally launch the app by the end of the summer.

The ImpactX tech startup accelerator program, formerly known as ICAT, provides business, computer science and liberal arts students with opportunities and resources to create, manage and execute their own impact entrepreneurship projects. All business models created must contribute to one or more of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations.

Featured image: Charleston Mayor John Tecklenburg, who served as one of the ImpactX judges, Daphne Lerner, Tristan Soliven, Candace Pfister, and President-elect Andrew T. Hsu.