AHMEDABAD: Leftover.in , an Ahmedabad-based startup launched by 26-year-old management graduate Rupesh Rajawat and his four friends, plans to address the twin issues of hunger and mitigating waste of food items. The company will collect leftover foods from all over the country and deliver it to the needy through its web portal. It also plans to come up with a mobile app.“There is a huge scope for collecting leftover foods and divert the same towards the needy,” said Rajawat, adding that these activities have not been much rewarding to leftover providers but the company will seek to make them more attractive to the stakeholders. The venture has been incubated for 2.0 – a crowdfunding initiator programme by Gujarat Technical University and it is currently raising funds via crowdfunding.The portal will act as a platform to connect people or institutions such as hotels, restaurants, owners of places let out for marriages or events, and caterers with non-governmental organisations or volunteers that are engaged in collecting and distributing leftover foods.“In the entire process, traditionally there are three main stakeholders – one, the leftover providers (restaurants, hotels, marriage party, caterers or individuals); second, the NGOs or institutions engaged in collection and distribution; and third, the needy who consume the food,” said Rajawat.The startup is attempting to add companies to the mix, he said, since the new companies law makes it mandatory for companies to spend at least 2% of their average net profit for the immediately preceding three financial years on corporate social responsibility or CSR activities.The new law obligates companies with a minimum net profit of Rs5 crore to constitute a CSR committee dedicated to undertake a mixed spectrum of initiatives such as promoting education, gender equality, women’s empowerment, improving maternal health, etc., and ensure environmental sustainability along with eradicating hunger.To capitalise the CSR initiatives, the startup will enroll companies to provide rewards to leftover food providers, thereby attracting more institutions and motivating them to contribute leftover foods by sharing their information timely with NGOs or social organisations over the portal. “The revenue model is simple: to charge a small fee for the service,” Rajawat said.He added that since cooked foods are a highly perishable item, leftover food providers and collectors need to be connected within a stipulated time frame.The startup’s study says that NGOs usually do not mind covering a long distance to collect leftover foods as long as it is provided in good quantity and quality. Moreover, the study found that leftover food providers, especially marriage parties and caterers, were more than happy to dispose off the leftovers for the needy rather than taking the pain to dispose it themselves.Every year, nearly 230 million people go hungry in India, said Rajawat, referring to a research study done by Bengaluru-based University of Agricultural Sciences, which found that nearly 943 tonne of good quality food goes waste at weddings in Bengaluru alone every year that is enough to feed a regular meal to 2.6 crore people.As per the study, at an average cost of Rs 40 per meal, the total food wastage in Bengaluru is estimated at Rs 339 crore.Rajawat further said that a similar kind of study was conducted by Vivek Agrawal of the Jaipur-based Centre for Development Communication (CDC) in 2013, when he collected leftovers from 16 wedding parties in Jaipur on Akshaya Tritiya, an auspicious day to wed, and was able to feed 10,000 people from the leftovers he collected.The portal, which is still in its infancy, will seek to address the twin issues of ensuring environmental sustainability by avoiding leftover food going waste, and eradicating hunger by diverting the leftover foods towards the needy masses, and thus avoiding creation of new demand for fresh food by NGOs or charity organisations.