Reducing Food Waste in
the Community
Acumen Human Centred Design -
Derby Jammers | Jen, Jean and Simon

How might we reduce food
waste in our community?

Discovery
Phase...

Objectives:
● Understand food waste and loss issues
● Identify any working solutions in existence
● Identify innovation and originality
● Understand the food production ecosystem

We contacted users from every point in the food-
production chain; from farmers, through to charity CEOs,
small business owners, store managers and end-
consumers.
We interviewed people about how they managed food
waste in their own home and investigated commercial
solutions to food waste currently in use.
We sought to understand where the best place to tackle
food waste might begin.

What we
learned...

Food skills are the basis for a
healthy life and well-being.

People’s homes are one
of the worst places for
food waste.

Younger people especially
lack food skills.

Food marketing and
advertising affects
how people think
about food waste.

People want appealing
food, but don’t know how
to achieve this.

How might
we...

… reduce dependency
on skills without making
food impersonal?

… make food advertising
portray reducing waste
positively?

… work with food
retailers to be more
proactive in reducing
food waste?

Key
insights...

1. Skills come first and
are the basis for
everything else.

2. Businesses are
motivated by profit,
not the health of
their customers.

3. Marketing has done a
lot of damage, but can
also be a force for good.

4. Planning is crucial
for efficiency.

Our
BIG IDEA...

Making the most of
technology and big
data.

A intelligent lifestyle
tool that takes the
work out of food skills.

Reducing food
waste in the home
and in-store.

Story
Board

1. Awareness: Food retailer and manufacturers include positive call-to-action at point-of-
purchase and throughout marketing.
2. Interaction Consumer signs up via tablet / mobile device. Encounters loyalty card data as
a starting point to food planning, with further options for manual
personalisation e.g. gluten free, or vegan
3. Planning Tool creates a weekly food plan based upon preferences and purchase history
4. In-store Mobile device scanned upon entry to store. Retailer stock levels compared to
meal plan. Meal plan adjusts and delivers vouchers for any items overstocked
or reaching end-of-life to encourage customer to purchase these
5. Point-of-purchase After shopping, scanned meal plan updates in real time to account for any
extra items or impulse shopping purchases
6. At home Meal recipes with how-to videos and instructions delivered to device at pre-set
times. Alarms utlilised to help manage timings
7. Optimisation Meals ticked off as made and eaten. Any changes recorded and meal-plan
updates to account for food not used.

Persona

SB3

Prototype

We prototyped the
product with a full-time
working single parent...

Clearing out food that
had gone to waste, and
preparing for next day’s
food.

Visiting the
supermarket and
exploring her
shopper journey
in detail.

Exploring the
point-of-purchase
experience.

Finally, cooking a meal
afterwards.

We used drawn
examples of the tool at
each stage to gain
feedback and insight.

Tablet
Interface

Evaluation

We wanted to find out...

1. Would the tool fit well
with the shopping and
cooking experience?

2. How was the tool
perceived in relation to
reducing food waste?

3. How easy was
the tool to use
during the process?

“ This tool is amazing! I’m terrible at
organisation at home because I’m so busy
and would love to try using something like
this to help me save money and food”.

WSYLTET integrated well into the
shopping experience as it was delivered
via mobile devices, (eventually supported
by 3G or instore Wifi).

Prototyping also identified the fact that
WSYLTET could also be used to teach
and encourage food skills amongst the
family’s children.

The places in the consumer journey
where the tool interfaced received a
positive response from the consumer
about the potential to reduce food waste.

The initial prototyped interface designs,
adapted for each device type and using a
simple and uncluttered design made
using the tool inuitive and easy.

Our next iteration of prototyping would be to run a
full test of the user experience across 2-3 days
based upon a short run of gathered shopping
data and delivering a short meal plan by email.