creating a new system for food behaviour
Food wastage sounds like a mundane problem with numerous possible solutions. I was intrigued by this topic, in particular, thinking of a possible different outcome from this topic for throw-away culture. After the research and the synthesis, I realized the problem starts much earlier in the system and has more issues than just the throw-away culture. Looking at the problem holistically gave us significant insights such as the problem begins from the planning stage and grows till the actually consuming the food leading to unintended food wastage.
Context
Analysis + Synthesis Course Fall 2021
7 weeks
Timeframe
Tools
Figma, Miro
Role
Research and synthesis, information architecture and conceptualization
The Opportunity
Understanding the behaviors and patterns around throw-away culture gave us extremely meaningful insights. We found the problem starts with the planning stage which is at the beginning of the system and how each factor in the system such as purchase, store, eat, and disposal has an influence on one another. We intervened in this problem with our holistic design approach and concept to develop a new one.
Purchase
Store
Cook
Eat
Dispose
The solution
Our proposed solution is to change the existing linear system of food wastage that is purchase, cook, store, eat and dispose to a circular system of planning, shopping, and building habits in the system since each of these tasks has an impact on one another that ultimately leads to food wastage.
2
3
Habitualization
Shopping
Planning
PlanEat
Our solution
1
Research
For our research purposes, we narrowed down our user group to students who are currently in graduate school, living independently, and who cook fresh food at least once a week.
We interviewed 20 participants along with in-store observations and intercepts by purposive and snowball sampling. For in-store observations, we visited grocery stores such as Trader Joe's and Jewel Osco.
We started compiling our research into facts and intelligence since the majority of the insights and observations were based on these two factors. After segregating them we started clustering similar observations into groups
Facts
Grocery shopping takes around 30 mins
the pre-packed quantity of fresh veggies is too much for a single individual or 2 people
Always cook more than you need
Approximately 5-10% of groceries go to waste in each cycle
A lot of back and forth at the selves while shopping but try to follow the order
A lot of food gets wasted because no idea/ time to have a sustainable approach
No written/ digital shopping list/ receipe, mostly only a mental memo about what to buy
Meal planning helps with limiting grocery purchases
Delivery meals are the easiest to waste
No waste in All Planned shopping
Buying in bulk leads to a lot of wastage if cooking only for single or 2 people
Because frozen food portions are more stable than the fresh ones, the meal portions are generally right
Self cooked meals always taste better and are healtheir but might lead to more food wastage
Intelligence
Going to supermarket for a specific dish
Bought food we never tried and worry whether it tastes good or not
When we see some familiar food, we tend to buy more of it
Tendecy to buy food that can be easily cooked and stored
For fresh foogs, a part of it will get wasted if the buyer doesn't have any idea/ forgets about the expiry
Remembers what we have at home and only want to buy what we really need
Although we are woried about the taste, we still bought two packets incase it tastes good since we didn't want to come back and get it
It's hard to decide which one is still edible
Always checking in the fridge is important for avoiding food wastage
Making shopping lists in their mind often lead to buying too much food
The expiration date of that product is easy to forget when you live a fast-paced life
Throwing away a pack of noodles that taste bad is not a huge problem
Considering trying more than worrying
We have always known as the food waste system
to be linear in nature
We started with synthesising of the food waste system. From clustering, we got a holistic view of the topic and started looking at the entire system around it. We broke down the system into six major categories- planning for the grocery, grocery shopping- the actual shopping, storage- at various ways, cooking, eat, and disposal.
But, from our clustering we saw a non-linear system
"
The main problem begins even before you start shopping for groceries,
that is what leads to food wastage majorly
"
"
focus areas
Our takeaways from the synthesis were mainly around planning, shopping, and bulk buying so we decided to focus on these areas specifically and broke them down further.
1
Planning ahead of time (grocery tips or delivery food) helps reduce the gross total quantity of food wastage
2
Users who prioritize shopping for quantity (in bulk) rather than quality leads to increased waste (related to cost)
Design principles
Solution architecture
We called our project Throw-away culture solutions further categorizing it into three main aspects- planning, shopping, and storage. We categorized it even further into recognition of needs, awareness of options, habitualization of solutions because we found that these are the main areas that we need to focus on which also cover the main aspects of the system and is doable in the current times as well.
Digital version of the map
Actual pictures of the map
Concept portfolio
Once we had concepts in place we made a concept portfolio for each of the concepts. Our parameters were familiar to new market offerings and near to long term vision of each concept.
01. Planning
Gives a list of ingredients, quantity required and weight
02. Shopping
03. Habitualization
Understand expiry of fresh foods
Cart is have weights connected with PlanEat app
PlanEat
Our solution
the new system
Holistic
system approach for Planning, Shopping, and building habits by Storing
Sync
data and add it to calender to know the expiry well in advance
Scenario
