Wanting to help prevent food loss in our society, and knowing the consumer's financial benefits in doing so, I set out to build NoWaste: A food inventory app for families.
With NoWaste, the goal is to help families reduce their yearly food waste to 0%, so they can reap the substantial benefits of up to 7000 DK KR in yearly savings and cutting down time spent grocery shopping with up to 4 hours monthly. (1)
Households in Denmark have a yearly estimate of 34% food waste. This amounts to 42 kg. of food lost a year pr family. At whole, the food waste problem costs danes 13,5 billion DK KR yearly. (1)
The challenge
NoWaste in numbers
30.000-42.000 food items added each month.
28.000-32.000 food items deleted each month
Since November, 2017, user's have averaged a 94,2% consumption rate, wasting less than 6% of their food.
The goal
The app
The process of creating the app
Analyzing the challenge
Understanding the desired change in behavior
Understanding the main target group
- Target group's characteristics
- Target group's context
- Target group's current solutions
Overcoming barriers to value-creation
The end product
Remaining challenges with the product
In order to help families reach the goal above, I needed to know why families faced a problem with food waste in the first place.
From user surveys I found 'Lack of knowledge' as a major underlying cause of food waste. This included not knowing what food they had, not know how much food they had and not knowing when it expired.
Analyzing the challenge
The why
The problem with 'lack of knowledge' appeared in different settings:
At home, where the they needed to know where their food is located and when it expires.
At the grocery shop, where they needed to know what food they had, how much they had and when it expired.
At work, where they would think about what to make for dinner, plan their meals and prepare to go shopping
Not knowing what food and how much food they had, when out shopping, caused them to buy more of the food they already had, ending up with a big pile and expired food.
Not knowing what food they had, would cause them to forget about the food, ending up with the food not being used and expiring.
Not knowing what food was at home while at work, would make it hard to plan meals, and cause them to spend time going to the grocery shop.
The where
The outcome
Understanding the desired
change in behavior
The analysis of the surveys showed that the issue of families wasting food, in large, originates from must-decide-now grocery-situations, where the issue begins as a consequence of families not readily being able to check what food is in stock.
The simple and effective behavioral change I wanted my product to make, was therefore to engage families in keeping an updated list of their food supply on their iPhone/iPad, which would be readily available for them check at anytime.
If the app could succeed in engaging families in this behavior change and in sustaining the change over time, the families would be well on their way to avoid food-waste-causing-behavior by only shopping the food they need when they need it. This would set the families on track to reap the substantial benefits of avoiding food waste, which is the main goal of NoWaste.
The main purpose of the app was now clear: To engage families in keeping an updated list of their food supply. The next step was how to make an implementation and execution of the app that would excel in engaging families and keeping them engaged over time. This required an understanding of the target group, their contexts and the current solutions that they were making use of.
Understanding
the main target group
In general
They are moms and dads
They are employed in full time jobs
They have 1 or more kids to provide for
In terms of responsibilities
They do the majority of the grocery shopping
They fill up and clean out the fridge, freezer or pantry
They cook dinner most evenings, serve breakfast and make lunch
In terms of interests
They use technology to help them in other parts of their life
They are interested in living more sustainably
In terms of feelings
They become happy when being organized and planning ahead
They are tired when they get home from work
They get annoyed when they throw away expired food
In terms of material possessions
They have 1 or more food inventories they use to store food in (e.g. 2 freezers)
They own an iPhone/iPad
I
n
What are demanded
of them during their week?
Who are they?
In the context of having a family
Putting aside a large amount of time to go to work
Ensuring their children get to their institutions on time
Feeding themselves and their children by cooking food
Cleaning the house, washing clothes, and going grocery shopping
Raising their children and dealing with conflicts
In the context of work
Completing work on time to keep their job
Dealing with co-workers, costumers and bosses
Organizing assignments and being present at meetings
Putting in an extra effort in hopes of advancing in their career
I
n
What solutions/products
are currently available for them?
They are moms and dads
They have 1 or more kids to provide for
They have 1 or more food inventories they use to store food in (e.g. 2 freezers)
They are employed in full time jobs
They are interested in living more sustainably
They get annoyed when they throw away expired food
They do the majority of the grocery shopping
They use technology to help them in other parts of their life
They enjoy being organized and to plan ahead
I
n