Food Loop
Food donation app to end the world’s hunger.
Design an intuitive, easy-to-use application that allows organisations to donate food easily. This application will help food donors from all industries— grocery stores, hotels, catering service, restaurants and more— to donate their food surplus to those who are in need in a timely and safe manner.
Kai is a small start-up with a team of four dedicated to ending world hunger once and for all through collaborative efforts from the community. According to a recent report by United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the World Resources Institute (WRI), about one-third of all food produced worldwide—worth around one trillion dollars—gets lost or wasted in food production and consumption systems. The small team has been working towards a scalable organisation to help food donors connect with local shelters, including its food centre that serves families in need and homeless people.
- • Identify potential food donors from different industries and their needs and challenges in the food donation process.
- • Discover how potential food donors handle their food excess e.g. restaurants, supermarkets, bakeries and etc.
- • Define logistic channels to connect food centres to homeless and families in need.
METHODS
- Market Research
• Understand the source and impact of food waste.
• Logistical challenges and handling of food and produce.
• The scheme on handling food donation based on existing non-profit organisation.
• Any existing programme of handling food waste from various enterprises in the food industry. - Generative Research
Primary research: conduct in-person or phone interviews to understand potential food donor’s challenges and obstacles in dealing with excess food.
- Potential candidates:
• Head chef from a local restaurant.
• Buyer who handles purchases for cafés and bakeries.
• Local supermarket or grocery stores. - Secondary Research
• Published online articles and mission statement by various sources and organisation on food waste
• Benchmarks and references e.g. Karma app (food waste app)
- Ethnographic Research
Connect with local non-profit food centre to understand their day-to-day challenge in handling food donation.
Competitors Analysis
Direct competitors offers a system to connect between food donors and non-profit organisations.
412 Food Rescue
Food Cloud
Transfernation
Indirect Competitors
An app that helps to save food from being wasted with discounted purchase price.
An app that provides a logistical solution for any food surplus problem.
Food Cloud offers a product that is targeting multiple end-users. They have a versatile framework and set up that allows all users to engage—food businesses can range from large food distributors to small restaurants. They certainly maximise the opportunity to reduce food surplus. Meanwhile, 412 Food Rescue’s various food rescue programme allows different donors to get involved.
Total participants: 4
Participants’ location: Stockholm, Sweden
Participants were interviewed on their field of work and how they deal with any excess food from both donors and receiver’s point of views. These interviews provide a 360 perspective on the reality of food donation and identify the opportunities to expand this cause.
Participant 1
Executive Head Chef
Large-scale Restaurant
Participant 2
Co-founder
Non-profit food rescue & catering
Participant 3
Buyer
Café for a retail brand
Participant 4
Director of food centre
Non-profit Food Centre
Key Findings
Potential donors from the food industry struggle with dedicating time and effort to redistribute their excess food to charities due to the food safety issue, which has been their biggest hurdle as prepared or packaged food have a much shorter expiration date compared to fresh produce and dry goods. Meanwhile, non-profit organisations, the recipients, want to make sure the donations are manageable in terms of volume and logistics. They need an automated system to facilitate the donation process from the donors to distribute them to people who are in need. Fresh produce, dry goods or other groceries donated by supermarkets or food distributors are much more manageable for them because prepared meals and pre-packaged food means higher risk in terms of food safety. Non-profit organisations prefer to receive donations from supermarkets due to the longevity of food items. A digital solution to solve the donation process and an automated system for inventory is the key to expand their cause.
Personas
3 provisional personas were identified as potential based on market research, online surveys and user interviews.
The Enterprises
Hotel, restaurants, cafés, bakeries, food catering company
The Grocery Stores
Grocery stores, supermarket,
and wholesale food distributors.
The Non-Profit
Organisations who handle donation.
Two primary personas was formulated based on key findings from all research phases and analysis.
Retailer
Non-profit
The Thriller-seeker
25 - 45 years old
Avid travellers
The Collector
30 - 45 years old
Sophisticated
The Innovator
40 - 50 years old
High income earners & tech savvy
Ideation
Discovery
As sustainability and environmental awareness become a popular topic, many commercial enterprises and organisations are gradually committing themselves to be more conscious of food waste. Throughout the research process, the four personal interviews were the part where I obtained the most insightful information from both donors’ and recipients’ perspectives. Both groups expressed their need for simplicity, organisation, and efficiency. These are the three main factors that become the core goals of this application. However, the main challenge is food safety and validity.
How could we address these concerns?
Concept
I focused on the task at hand in making the donation process as easy and as simple as possible. Donors lack the time and resources (added labour cost) to keep track of inventory and status. A guided process and automated data organisation alleviate this burden. As food donation is complicated with food safety rules, it is essential to make sure all donations follow strict food validity guidelines. An in-app food expiration date calculator helps the user to make their donations with confidence.
Once the main wireframes were in place, I began to develop a visual brand guide that reflects Food Loop’s brand value and its cause—positive, vibrant, conscious and effective. I chose to use system fonts from the iOS system to keep the interface simple and easy to navigate. The contrasting palette of a deep purple and red helps to draw attention to the cause of the app. The bright red helps to accentuate the CTAs presence. The linking loops with arrows in the logo also reflect the concept of Food Loop’s goal to reduce food waste by redistributing excess food.
Responsive UI & Prototype
Food safety is a huge concern and rigorous guidelines must be followed. Donor is able to indicate important details such as expiration dates and food allergies on their donations
UI Kit
Usability Testing
Total participants: 2
Method: in-person testing
TASK
Being a food donor, user was asked to perform their task in adding food items for donations, schedule deliveries. and keeping track of the status of their donations.
GOALS
- To identify themselves as food donor in order to proceed with donations.
- To navigate through the donation process through simple steps.
- To view and manage their donations in all stages throughout the process.
Usability Test Completion Rate: 100%
Participants did not have any major friction in navigating their way through the donation process. It was very easy for them to carry out their tasks and they like that the overall interface is very simple. It helps them to achieve a rather complex task of submitting food donations and facilitate the logistics in a simple, effcient manner.
Iteration
Based on the feedbacks from the usability testings, I adapted their comments and updated the final screens and prototype to improve usability and clarity.
Next Step
As food waste is becoming a rising social issue, it was a very rewarding experience to work on this project knowing that some organisations and communities are dedicated to this cause. Since I only had 4 weeks to research, definte, ideate, prototype and test for the food donor’s journey, I would like to explore further on the donation recipient journeys moving forward as well as how delivery drivers can be integrated into the process. Also, a desktop version would be a great feature to help organisations managing inventory in a larger scale.
