SurplusLink
Rescue surplus food nearby
Restaurants list leftovers. Neighbors claim pickups before good food goes to waste.
The problem
Good food disappears before the people who need it know it exists
Surplus is time-sensitive. Without a shared board and clear pickup windows, kitchens waste edible food and neighbors never get the chance.
01
Edible food still gets tossed
Restaurants and pantries discard surplus at closing while nearby people face food insecurity.
02
Discovery is fragmented
What is available, where, and until when rarely lives in one place people can check on a phone.
03
Pickup logistics stall
Time windows are short, portions change fast, and multi-stop runs are hard to plan by hand.
The solution
SurplusLink turns closing trays into claimable pickups
A mobile-friendly web app for donors and recipients: photograph surplus, publish a window, claim nearby, and run an efficient multi-stop route — with free local vision, not a paid cloud API.
- 01
Donors photograph leftovers; local Food-101 suggests listing details.
- 02
Staff confirm allergens, portions, and a pickup window — then publish.
- 03
Recipients browse a live map, claim what they can use, and optimize a route.
How it works
From camera to curb in one calm loop
Donors list in minutes. Recipients see what is available tonight, reserve portions, and get an ordered pickup run — click through the pipeline to see each layer of the stack.
System architecture
From photo to pickup route under the hood. Click any stage for details.
Pipeline
Offline branch
Stage detail
Capture
Browser · multipart upload
Restaurant staff photograph surplus leftovers on a phone. The image is sized client-side when needed, then sent to the analyze route (5MB cap).
Pickup ready for neighbors
Local
Food-101 ONNX
$0
vision API cost
< 30s
photo → listing*
OSRM
pickup routing
*After the local model is warm; first classify may download weights.
FAQ
Straight answers for donors, recipients, and demo judges.
Who is SurplusLink for?
Restaurants and pantries (donors) who have edible surplus, and neighbors (recipients) who can pick it up during an open window. Both use the same mobile-friendly web app.
How does the food photo recognition work?
A free local Food-101 classifier (ONNX via Hugging Face transformers) runs on the server — no cloud vision billing. It suggests a dish name, categories, allergen heuristics, and quantity. Staff always confirm before publishing.
Are allergen suggestions guaranteed?
No. Allergens are assistive heuristics from the dish label, not visual detection or lab tests. Donors must review and edit them. Recipients should still use their own judgment.
Is my personal information shown on the public map?
No. Explore does not expose recipient identity. A donor’s phone number is revealed only after a successful claim, so pickup contact stays private until it is needed.
What if several people claim the last portion?
Claims update stock in a database transaction. Only requests that still have enough remaining portions succeed — so the last tray cannot be oversold in the demo.
Can I pick up from more than one place?
Yes. Reserve multiple listings, open Claims, select two or more stops, and SurplusLink orders a pickup run (nearest-neighbor + OSRM). If routing is unavailable, you still get a straight-line fallback order.
Who is responsible for food safety?
Donors remain responsible for handling and safety. SurplusLink is a coordination tool for sharing surplus — not a certification, delivery service, or medical guarantee.
Start with what is available tonight
Browse live surplus near Louisville, or sign in to list and claim.