Purdue researcher’s 'Food Drop' software reroutes excess truckloads of food to pantries, Purdue says

A Purdue University news release dated 2026-11-02 says Alex Psomas, an assistant professor of computer science in Purdue’s College of Science, developed a program called Food Drop to help truck drivers and food organizations redirect excess food that would otherwise go to landfills.

The release says Food Drop’s algorithm balances travel distances with where donated food can do the most good and uses tools including machine learning and flexible optimization methods. Purdue cites examples that complicate salvage decisions — such as a needed forklift operator being off-shift, a spilled pallet in a 12-pallet load, or seasonal items arriving after their peak demand (cited example: pumpkins on Nov. 1). The release describes Psomas’ approach as a novel optimization algorithm that helps route excess food to food banks and as work that applies his broader research on the “computation of contentment.”

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