We all know college students love to eat — they don’t call it the Freshman 15 for nothing. So it isn’t surprising that in the span of just a year University students have created two digital platforms that help students find food on Grounds — Foodio and hoos-eat-free.
Fourth-year College students Nabil Ahmed and Rory Stolzenberg co-founded Foodio, a smartphone app, last May. The Android app has created campus-wide buzz as the new iPhone Beta version is set to release in two weeks.
Stolzenberg had the idea in his first year and plans to develop it after he graduates in May, expanding it to other cities, he said.
The feature that sets Foodio apart from competitors is its check-splitting capability. The app allows friends ordering food to sync their phones together to create one group order.
“[It] brings a social aspect to food ordering, making it easy and convenient to split the check when ordering food with roommates or friends,” Stolzenberg said.
The app currently has about 125 users. Stolzenberg said he hopes to expand the consumer base with the new iPhone version.
Foodio is currently compatible only with Littlejohn’s, Corner Cup, Szechuan, Slice and Lunchbox Express. Stolzenberg said that updates will bring a wider variety of restaurants to choose from.
Another fourth-year College student created a blog dedicated to free food events called hoos-eat-free last March. Since then, hoos-eat-free has expanded to both Facebook and Twitter. The blog’s Facebook page currently has more than 600 likes, and about 700 students follow the blog on a weekly basis.
“It all started when I got knee surgery and decided to create the blog for myself,” the blog’s creator said.
The blog includes events providing free food such as Taste of Charlottesville, Bhangra Night and Oktoberfestival. “It’s meant to be an outreach for event opportunities that students would otherwise not know about,” the blog’s creator said.
In addition to the blog, Facebook page and Twitter account, there’s also a smartphone app called Hoo’s Eating that is linked to the information on the hoos-eat-free blog. Hoo’s Eating allows users to search for free food opportunities with a “near me” feature that lays out all the events on a map based on your current location.
The app, which was released last month, is free and available on both iPhone and Android.
The groups’ founders said their ventures help bring people together over a meal — and if you’re lucky, you won’t pay a dime.
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