Fighting food waste and hunger across Indonesia with Zoho Creator
"FoodCycle has this vision to become a nationwide food bank that helps people in need, and with Zoho Creator, I think it's possible. Whether big or small, nonprofits of all sizes can easily automate their daily operations on Creator, just like we did."
- Ariseno Operations Manager, FoodCycle Indonesia
The company
Started in 2017, FoodCycle is a nonprofit organization working toward eliminating food waste and hunger throughout Indonesia. To do this, they collect and redirect surplus food from different sources to those who need it. FoodCycle is a proud member of The Global FoodBanking Network.
"Our founders, Herman and Astrid, were inspired by a viral video from India where people donated their surplus wedding food to people in need. Our first project was 'A Blessing to Share' which started with one wedding in Jakarta. We collected the untouched surplus food directly from the kitchen and distributed it. We now run multiple projects and have partnered with more than 120 donors, including bakeries, FMCGs, supermarkets, and more. We've distributed food to more than 40,000 people across Indonesia."
- Kukuh Napaki,PR Marketing Head, FoodCycle Indonesia
The challenges
FoodCycle Indonesia’s warehouse opening coincided with the onset of COVID-19. The sudden influx of new and surplus product donations from food manufacturers and corporate partners enabled FoodCycle to make and distribute thousands of emergency meal kits across Indonesia.
Budget, talent, and technology are the primary barriers for nonprofits; and the founders knew they had to digitize their core processes to scale their operations and reach more people. Spreadsheets worked fine for small campaigns, but they fell short when it came to bigger projects, which involved collaboration between multiple teams and resources.
The solution
Astrid stumbled upon Zoho Creator when she took part in Zoholics, Zoho's annual user conference. She was intrigued by how quick and easy the low-code application development process was and decided to sign up.
"Becoming a tech-powered nonprofit Zoho Creator is very user-friendly. Unlike traditional programming languages, anyone with basic digital literacy can explore the low-code platform and build custom solutions. We could drag and drop forms and modules in our case, and we had a basic application ready to deploy. As your requirements grow and you need a more structured and complex solution, you can always reach out to the Creator team."
- Astrid Paramita,CEO & Co-Founder, FoodCycle
After exploring the platform, Astrid reached out to the Creator team with their requirements, and the experts quickly worked on a custom solution that would address FoodCycle's every need. With the basic framework in place, the FoodCycle team continued to add modules and tweaks to the application whenever required.
"Coming from a small business setup, it's just so cost-effective. I love that it's subscription-based, and we don't have to spend thousands of dollars on solution development. Zoho Creator has lowered the barrier for small businesses and given us access to enterprise-level technology. Now that's empowering!"
- Astrid Paramita,CEO & Co-Founder, FoodCycle
FoodCycle Hub 1.0
The FoodCycle Hub acts as an end-to-end solution enabling the FoodCycle team to plan and execute campaigns, store donor information, manage inventory, gauge supply and demand, and coordinate logistics from a single place.
"FoodCycle Hub 1.0 Zoho Creator helps us streamline our day-to-day operations, from tracking the incoming donations from our beneficiaries, warehousing, and distribution to partnering agencies. We generate weekly and monthly reports and share them with all involved stakeholders. I think Creator is very fluid. We can easily integrate it with other applications and access it from any device."
- Ariseno,Operations Manager, FoodCycle
Benefits and ROI
Hassle-free donor management
The FoodCycle team manages the information from diverse donor sources in a single place, with the custom application enabling centralized access and collaboration between stakeholders. Dashboards and reports give donors real-time information about project goals and progress.
Warehousing made easy
The team actively logs thousands of line items every month using the app. Every entry automatically updates the inventory, making it easy to map the available stock to demand. The app also records the expiry date associated with each product and helps in ensuring safety and quality.
Effortless campaign planning and execution
The app helps plan and monitor multiple campaigns simultaneously with a Creator dashboard. Whenever the team works on a new project, they edit the existing module or create a new one on the go. By tracking progress, the team can efficiently allocate available resources.
Efficient route tracking
The team manages and tracks their supply chain activities with the app, ensuring the process is both cost-effective and transparent. By choosing the most appropriate route from a list of options, the team ensures safe delivery of their food packages, despite challenges like connectivity in remote areas.
Looking forward
One of the greatest strengths of low-code platforms is their ability to scale and integrate with new features and technologies. You don't need an in-house IT team to alter or add to your existing solution.
"We want to integrate a barcode scanner into our Zoho Creator mobile app to track inbound and outbound items. We also want to create individual portals for our beneficiaries, where they can view and upload reports."
- Kukuh Napaki,PR Marketing Head, FoodCycle
Nonprofit organizations need to become data-driven, create a culture that embraces technology and learning, and collaborate effectively with donors and other beneficiaries in their network to take their mission to newer heights.
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Frequently Asked Questions
What is Zoho Creator?
Zoho Creator is a low-code application development platform that allows users to create custom applications on their own, with minimal coding experience. The intuitive drag-and-drop interface empowers developers and business users to build web and mobile applications that satisfy all their unique requirements with ease.
Are applications built on Zoho Creator scalable?
Applications built on Zoho Creator are built to auto-scale—the back-end infrastructure seamlessly scales as business demand grows. Currently 22,000+ customers across 180+ countries are using over 6 million applications built using Zoho Creator, a testimony to the power of the platform.
Does Zoho Creator have a free plan?
Yes, Zoho Creator has a free plan. This plan comes with a limited feature set and only has one user, one application access, 250 MB storage, and 1,000 records. However, you have the option to upgrade to the paid plan whenever you wish.
What can I build on Zoho Creator?
Be it a task manager, a CRM, an ERP, or an application for almost any situation—you can build it on Zoho Creator. Just drag and drop elements on our visual builder and see your apps come alive instantly.
Can I build mobile apps on Zoho Creator?
Yes, the apps you build on the web run natively on PCs, tablets, and both iOS and Android mobile devices. You can also rebrand them and share it with your employees and customers instantly.