ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As students and faculty have raised concerns about food waste and food insecurity at UNM and other college campuses in New Mexico, a new app is addressing both of those issues at the same time.

“It seemed crazy to us. We have this problem of waste. We have this problem of people in need of food. And the app would solve that,” said Sarita Cargas, a professor at UNM and the principal investigator with the UNM Basic Needs Project.

Cargas presented the idea for an app to the UNM IT team. Then, they introduced her to Biraj Siwal, an economics and computer science alumnus who was a student at the time.

“Biraj created the app from scratch and he won the UNM-CNM app contest,” Cargas said.

Two years later, the LoboEats app is finally a reality – but how does it work?

Campus event organizers send an alert sharing what leftovers they have and where it is. All app users get this, plus directions to the location.

“We’ve said it would be available for 20 minutes for health and safety reasons and in consideration of staff time. We’ve done a soft lunch launch and so far, it’s been enthusiastically received,” Cargas said.

Drawing from her work with the UNM Basic Needs Project, Cargas says other college campuses could benefit from this concept.

The project surveyed 10,000 college students in New Mexico. They found 58% of students are food insecure, compared to 13% of all households.

“The majority [of students] were very low [in food security] and that means skipping meals,” Cargas pointed out.

To address this, the UNM Basic Needs Project is becoming the New Mexico Basic Needs Consortium. They’re working with the state government and are pushing for more funding for food pantries, expanded solutions (e.g., food vouchers, food scholarships) and better outreach.

“$3 billion is left on the table by eligible college students when it comes to SNAP eligibility and, SNAP dollars. That’s sort of low-hanging fruit if we could just increase outreach to students and educate them about the SNAP availability,” Cargas said. “[Also] we need to change the work requirement. Right now, there’s a 20-hour work requirement that’s very difficult for full-time students [to meet].”

Change comes one step at a time. The LoboEats app is step one.

“We want to make it a more well-known problem to solve it but to say you’re not alone,” Cargas said.

The LoboEats is available for Android and iPhone users. You do need a UNM NetID to log into the app. Click here to learn more.