Dr. Eid Gul, Daniela Ochoa Gonzalez and Nicole Fisher engage with community visitors at the PG County Community Garden Summit
At the 2025 Prince George’s County Community Garden Summit, the University of Maryland’s NourishNet Project showcased its AI-powered Scenario Analysis Engine, a groundbreaking tool designed to help government institutions, nonprofits, and local organizations reduce food waste and make smarter sustainable decisions. The tool, part of the project’s FoodLoops app, which supports smarter food redistribution in Prince George’s County and beyond, predicts and ranks strategies for handling surplus food from donation and composting to anaerobic digestion, animal feed, and landfill disposal.
By analyzing factors such as greenhouse gases, costs, and potential for food recovery, the engine helps organizations identify the most effective strategies. Summit attendees called it a “game-changer for sustainable food management.”
“This event allowed us to connect science with real community impact,” said lead developer and Postdoc in the university’s Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Dr. Eid Gul. “Our AI models help institutions save money, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and strengthen local food systems.”
Visitors at the NourishNet booth engaged with interactive visuals, and flyers explaining how the Scenario Analysis Engine works. The dashboard allows users to input their own data such as food type, quantity, and location and instantly receive ranked diversion strategies, complete with maps, cost-benefit analyses, and downloadable reports.
The project encourages local nonprofits, food distributors, those who may be experiencing food insecurity, and other partners to get involved by completing a short survey and joining beta testing for FoodLoops. Feedback from the community is crucial as FoodLoops seeks to refine its AI-powered solutions. For more information on the beta testing process, please connect with Michelle Burton at mburton@institutephi.org. The NourishNet Project, led by Professor Stephanie Lansing in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology at the University of Maryland and funded by the National Science Foundation, bridges cutting-edge research with real-world community needs. By combining machine learning, greenhouse gas and cost modeling, GIS-based routing, and an intuitive dashboard, the project empowers institutions to make data-driven, sustainable decisions about food diversion.
Through innovation, data, and community engagement, the NourishNet team is helping Maryland move toward equitable, efficient, and sustainable food systems.
