Pop-up farmers market app lands $25K in innovation challenge
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GreenBasket will receive $25,000 as the winner of AgriNovus Indiana’s 2023 HungerTech Innovation Challenge to push its farmers market delivery system to market.
The Indianapolis-based startup created CropSpots, an app to allow users to send local goods and produce to central community locations for lower delivery prices compared to doorstep shipping, akin to a pop-up farmers market.
The team of IUPUI students includes Shreyas Patel, Drishti Dinesh Jogadia, Nisarg Hiteshkumar Rajpura and Aditya Suresh Nair and are the first student group to win the competition.
“Food insecurity, as a topic, was something that we were inclined towards figuring out what to do about it,” one of the students said on a bonus edition of AgriNovus Indiana’s Agbioscience podcast.
The HungerTech Innovation Challenge is a month-long accelerator to advance how technology is used to alleviate and address hunger-related inequities for food insecure communities.
Through identifying SNAP benefits users as their target userbase and identifying affordability as the priority concern through interviews, the students developed the idea as a pop-up farmers market to both benefit at-need communities and local producers.
The students behind CropSpots talk about how they came to their compeition winning idea on the AG+BIO+SCIENCE podcast.
They said their next step is to connect with other stakeholders to bring CropSpots to market and help others.
South Bend-based Cultivate Food Rescue was a runner-up, receiving $5,000, for its platform ShelfLife, which is connects food suppliers with with food pantries. Food Box, also created by IUPUI students, was an honorable mention for food desert-focused solution using a smart dispenser to distribute healthy meals at its locations.
Hear more what about the competition finalists on the Abioscience podcast, which will be available Tuesday morning.