Toronto Food Basket

A web app that tracks and analyzes food prices across Toronto to help families make informed decisions about food affordability.

Toronto Food Basket is a non-profit initiative focused on compiling and analyzing data related to the prices of essential food items. The project helps raise awareness about food insecurity by delivering transparent, data-backed insights into regional food pricing trends.

Technical Implementation

Built with a modern full-stack architecture using Node.js, React, and MongoDB. The system includes a robust web scraper using Puppeteer and Express to extract price data for 65+ essential food items listed by the National Nutritious Food Basket (NNFB).

Features

• Real-time price tracking across multiple grocery stores
• Interactive data visualization with Material UI components
• Price calculations (average price per 100g) to support informed decisions
• Proxy rotation system to ensure reliable data collection
• Containerized deployment using Docker on AWS EC2