Structure

Substitute — Fruit Snacks

Seth Johnson

4 min readNov 12, 2015

Vegetable Snacks (flavored and shaped like vegtables — carrots, etc))
{Pictured} Cheese snacks (Different flavors of cheese in cartoon cheese wedge shapes)
Spice snacks (cinnamon, ginger, etc)
Chocolate snacks (Sounds generic- Different bite-sized flavors, filled with peanut butter, caramel, etc)
Meat snacks (different jerked meats, like pork, beef, chicken, etc)
Actual dried fruit pieces
Different nuts carved with the names of the nuts
Different pieces of flavored bubble gum shaped like fruitsnacks
Fructose snacks — globs of sugary goodness
Pasta Snacks – different cooked noodles

Combine

Fruit Snacks and nuts
Fruit Snacks and chocolate
Fruit Snacks in Ice Cream
Fruit Snack Cookies
Fruit Snacks in trail mix
Fruit snacks and cheese!
Fruit snacks and milk
{Pictured} Fruit Snacks and caramel
Fruit Snacks roasted over a campfire with s’more ingredients
Fruit Snacks mixed with Jelly Beans

Adapt

Fill Fruit Snacks with liquid
Make Fruit Snacks by freezing juice
Baked Fruit Snacks
Coat Fruit Snacks in salt
{Pictured} Coat Fruit Snacks in cinnamon
Flute Snacks — Fruit snacks that make music when you blow in them
Make fruitsnacks flat and adhesive
Fruitsnacks on a stick
Carbonated Fruitsnacks
Woven fruitsnacks

Magnify/Modify — Fruitsnacks

{Pictured} Giant Fruit snacks: fruit-sized gummy fruit snacks
Long strips of fruit snack
Small, bead-sized fruitsnacks
Chip-bag sized servings
Extra Chewy Fruitsnacks
Extra Giant Fruitsnacks- Cake-sized
Clear tubes of fruit snacks
Hollow fruit snacks
Uniform square shapes
All the same color fruit snacks

Put to Other Use — Lunchables

Breakfast Lunchables
Dessert Lunchables
{Pictured} Cookie baking materials
Use container for nuts, bolts, etc
Use small food materials for catering a child’s party
Use for hospital meals to give patiants a chance to “prepare their own meals”
Use non-parishable lunchables as a meal for homeless
Use as a base for a more complicated meal.
Use tray for sorting LEGO pieces
Use tray for mixing paints

Eliminate — Trail Mix

Eliminate salt
Eliminate bags
Eliminate nuts
Eliminate sweets
Eliminate fruits
Eliminate the drying process for the fruits
{Pictured} Eliminate the need to touch the trailmix by putting it in a cup
Eliminate the packaging by sticking it all together
Eliminate “mix” by just making it one ingredient
Eliminate “trail” by making it with things you shouldn’t eat on a hike

Reverse/Rearrange — Trail Mix

Have individual bags of each ingredient
Make a mix of things that look like stuff you’d find on a trail: food that looks like dirt, grass, pine needles, etc
Have ingredients in organized pattern
Have Ingredients in organized layers
Mixed Trails: each piece of trailmix has the name of a different famous trail on it

Table Based Tool or TRIZ

I’d like to use TRIZ.

My problem statement is:

Sarah, a working mom, needs a snack that has the appeal of sugary commercial foods while not amping up their energy because her kids just don’t get excited about sandwiches and fruit.

My contradiction would ideally be something along the lines of:

Appeal [of snack] vs. health[iness of snack]

Unfortunately, the TRIZ Parameters all seem to be mechanical in nature, rather than psychological or nutritional.

I skimmed through the following site:

http://www.triz-journal.com/developing-systematic-innovation-tools-food-industry/

Finally, I just read through the list on triz40.com and picked some principles that seemed appropriate.

3 Ideas from Table Based Tool or TRIZ

Principle 22: “Blessing in Disguise”
Since kids get excited by the colorful packaging on unhealthy cereals, sodas, and candy, we should package healthy organic things in exciting packaging as well.
Principle 19: Periodic Action
Since kids can feel bored with healthy food, perhaps snacks should be alternated with the less healthy snacks kids get excited about.
Principle 16: Partial Action
Since kids can feel bored with healthy food, perhaps only some elements of the snack food should be organic as kids get used to them.