Food Service Guidelines Algorithmic Identification and Database Tool

The objective of this research and development effort is to build a Food Intelligence Platform to provide a comprehensive set of information about food products including identifying products that align with food service guidelines. The platform would be used to identify healthy and sustainable food products for procurement officials at federal, state, and local government facilities, hospitals, healthcare facilities, colleges and universities, private worksites, parks and recreation centers, stadiums, and venues such as vending machines, snack bars, concession stands, and micro markets. We will use a human-centered design approach to obtain input from various types of users to better understand their roles and responsibilities and incorporate the information collected to determine features and capabilities of the platform. We will develop the product using Agile/Scrum methodology. Additionally, the project will be developed using modern technology concepts and deployed as cloud-based SaaS architecture. The innovative work – demonstrating ability to evaluate food products against a set of guidelines – has the potential to change the social norms by creating expectations of healthier food of average availability, strengthen the local food systems, reduce harmful environmental impact, and most importantly promote better nutrition habits thereby contributing to the lowering of incidences of obesity and chronic diseases.