Food waste workshop A service that collects food waste and turns it into a fun learning experience.
A workshop that educates college students on the nuances of food waste through educational games and communal dining.
Project overview
Design Brief:
Design a service that collects food waste.

Duration:
4 weeks
Role:
This this project we were in groups of four. I was helped with idea generation prototying, interviewing, running the workshop and gathering data afterwards.
Initial explorations & research
We started doing research, interviews and documenting observations to see what was the biggest food that was wasted most commonly wasted and what services were already running that collect food waste.
This research was invaluble and we learned so much our key insights were :

  • A majority of domestic food waste is due to people not eating leftovers in time and best before dates, produce and bread also make up a lot of waste.

  • Direct visual cues (labeling, shapes, colour coding and symbols) are very effective for getting people to sort waste.

  • Education rooted in enjoyment is an effective tool to initiate change in someone's daily behaviour such as food waste.

  • People living alone waste alot more food than people living in groups, especially students who lack planning and organizational skills around food.
Consept
Our proposed service is a workshop dedicated to reducing food waste by collecting and repurposing items that have surpassed their best-before dates and are no longer sellable. Through engaging cooking demonstrations and enjoyable educational activities, we aim to show that such food past its best before can still be perfectly edible. We strive to create a safe and fun environment where people can learn, share their experiences with food waste, and make use of collected food that would otherwise go to waste.

We decided to aim our workshop at college students because we found in our research they were the group with the most need for food managment education.

We aimed our service at the top two tiers of the food pyramid because our research identified this as the most effective strategy for preventing food waste.


This service could be run through or sponsored by the enviormental protection agency
who already have a national campain called stop food waste aimed at reducing household waste.
Persona
Customer journey

Touchpoints of company
Low-fi experience prototype 
Research PodcastWe ran podcast style interviews with our target demographic to see if there was intrest in talking about these kinds of topics and to prototype some of the conversations and questions we were thinking of having at the workshop.
The interviews were a success people were engaged and we learned a lot.

Key quotes


“I've never thought of food waste being so linked to your mental health and emotions…… I think everyone's family has their own nuance's with that and i think that's an integral part of educating people on food waste because there's no getting away from it that food is an emotioal thing for people"

"In primary school i used to have such a problem with smelly lunches when I had tuna I would never eat them or throw them out. looking back on it I don't know how I wasn't starving"

Key insights

  • Food wastage isnt only an organisational issue it can also stem from emotional and personal factors and theres no one solution that can solve the creation of food waste.

  • People want to talk about food waste and feel alot more comfortable talking about a problem when they know someone else has gone through something similar before.
Service blue print

Running the workshop During the research stage of the projects we were talking to the colleges Student union wondering if they thought this concept was something that would apeal to the college and benifit the students. They liked the idea so much that they offered to give us funding to run a mini version of it on campus.For our trial version we decided that the food we would prepare would be toastie samwiches because lidl had bread and cheese avalible to donate to us and they require little equipment and can be prepared quickly. Form
Using Adobe indesign we made the form that would be sent out by the colleges to the students before the workshop so we can cater the workshop to the needs of those attending.
Collecting food waste and making food Key learnings:

  • If we were to do this again we would ask shops for donations earlier so  beacause then we would know what food we were getting earlier and this would allow us to plan the workshop better.

  • We would also collect more food, we under estimated the amount of people who would come and the popularity of the toasties.

  • Having a veriety of recipes or toasties would be nice if the operation became more largescale and maybe getting more creative with the dishes or fillings. Also having options forpeople with diffrent dietary requirments.
Educational games
We came up with two diffrent games that would educate and entertain the guests at the workshop while they are waiting for their toasties. The two games are

  • Fridge game
  • Cheese game
Fridge game
How you organise your fridge
Cheese game
So much perfectly edible food is thrown out after its best before

Zine We designed a zine that we could hand out at the end of the workshop so people have something to take home and reflect on. In the zine we included statistics, facts and a recipe for a vegetable stock you can make from leftover vegetables.

Key Learnings from running workshop

  • People learn alot more from interacting and playing with content rather than just reading or learning it.

  • Having the games was a realy good idea and they created the fun and relaxed atmosphere we wanted. it also kept everyone busy while the samwiches were toasting.

  • People interact more with the games when they didnt need any team memebers supervising them. People feel more comfortable to try and fail and take their time when they arent being watched by a stranger.

  • People enjoy learning more when the information is actually relivent to them.
Photos from the event


Impact & Results Feedback at the end of the workshop:

“That was really fun, not like anything I’ve ever done before”
“Its nice to do a workshop thats actually fun and not as boaring and negative like ones ive done before”

“I learned alot the zine was sick I wish there was more”

Feedback a week after the workshop from google forms:   
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