Idea: Airbnb for food. An app where you buy meals cooked by your neighbors.
I see two big trends these days.
1) People seems more willing to connect back with their neighbors and community.
2) People have less time but want to eat more healthy.
Imagine this scenario:
While going back home, a student could check on the app what's available to eat for tonight. Next to his place, there's a family willing to sell the extra tacos for a few bucks. The student would then just stop by and pick them up.
Obviously, there would be quality rating and the possibility to reserve a few days in advance.
Major legal problems with this, unfortunately (at least in the US). You pretty much HAVE to have a commercial kitchen in order to legally sell food in the United States, as well as be licensed by the state. It is cost prohibitive. Some states have what are called "cottage food laws" that enable individuals to sell food cooked in their home kitchens on a small scale, but there are many restrictions. (For example, in my state, you cannot own any pets, and the food can't be the sort that goes bad if you don't refrigerate it.)
Granted, what Airbnb does isn't altogether legal much of the time, but food safety is taken much more seriously than hotel taxes and zoning laws. If you did build a startup like this, the second it started to become popular, I expect that you would get shut down.
What if there is no money involved in this, but more of an exchange/barter with points?
If a point was roughly equal to a cent, then imagine
the neighbour makes 3 tacos that could be 500 points...
This student then will offer up a $25 Amazon gift card that is worth $25 to him, that he could offer for sale on this site (like ebay) and he gets to keep his points which he can barter..
At no point is cash redeemed/exchanged.
Does this break any of the various regulatory laws in place?
The laws are at the state level, so you'd have to dig deep into your particular state's laws to find out for sure (or hire a lawyer to do it). But since the concern is about foodborne illness, I suspect that you will run into a problem with the law in any case where you are offering food to the public that was not cooked under your state's watchful eye, regardless of your particular compensation scheme or lack thereof.
I am aware of one way around this, though (sort of). As I recall, if you come to my house and cook food for me in my kitchen, then I can pay you and everything is fine. I don't think you even need a food handler's license. But obviously, that's a lot less convenient for both of us.
I'm no expert on this topic. I've just looked into it enough to get discouraged!
http://us.dinnersurfer.com does this. It's only a few months old and may not have that many users outside of its native Denmark yet, but it has potential.
Oh I see. I actually like that! I don't think I would ever use one of these services to eat at a strangers house. However, if I could go on and see a list of what people in my area are planning to make (oh boy my neighbour is planning to make a batch of brownies this weekend). Then I could opt in and pay for a certain amount before some deadline.
Then the person making the food sees that they need to make an extra x amount of brownies (but they were already planning to make them, but now can make some extra money!). Then when they are ready you get an alert and can go pick it up.
I see two big trends these days.
1) People seems more willing to connect back with their neighbors and community.
2) People have less time but want to eat more healthy.
Imagine this scenario:
While going back home, a student could check on the app what's available to eat for tonight. Next to his place, there's a family willing to sell the extra tacos for a few bucks. The student would then just stop by and pick them up.
Obviously, there would be quality rating and the possibility to reserve a few days in advance.