In the first part of our series, we explored 10 change drivers that will shape the future of cooking — and open up opportunities for innovation. For your second course, we’re dishing up 10 gaps we’ve spotted in today’s products and services, representing a want or a need. From saving space and energy, to getting just the right amount of help when we need it, or even eating insects: how might we shape the future of cooking?
1. Grow it yourself (GIY)
How might we make GIY part of people’s diets, homes, and lifestyles?
Locally-sourced produce is growing in demand, and the natural progression from this is the most local you can get: home-grown! Mini-gardens at home and communal gardens will enable people to grow their own herbs, algae, and vegetables. Long supply chains can be reduced and the average person will be able to discover new ingredients. But GIY won’t only be for those blessed with green fingers. Future growing solutions will need to be practical, realistic and convenient in order to be widely appealing. Several types of home growing systems are marketed to consumers, but which system will become their first choice?
2. Recycling energy
How might we put waste energy from the kitchen to good use?
We use and produce all kinds of energy when we cook, and a lot of this goes to waste. Think of the steam from your kettle, the water running down the drain, even the kinetic energy as you move around the kitchen. All this “waste” energy could be recycled or harvested to power other cooking processes, charge your devices, or even go back to the grid as electricity. With people becoming ever more energy conscious — for both the environmental and economic benefits — there’s an open opportunity to bring alternative energy into regular people’s homes.
3. Cleaning is boring
How might we integrate cleaning into the cooking process?
When thinking about how to improve the cooking experience, we tend to overlook the cleaning part. Let’s face it, nobody likes to clean. But this is precisely why improvements in this area would have such a huge impact. And there are plenty of possibilities to make the cleaning process easier; the last big innovation was the dishwasher (and we’re talking nearly a hundred years ago). Instead of a system of cooking first, then cleaning, it could be interesting to integrate cleaning into the cooking process, with a smarter, more dynamic dishwasher, an evolved sink, or another tool.
4. The new standard
How might we create the new standard for commonly used kitchen tools?
We all have tools we use every day. In fact, we pretty much rely on them. But still, they’re far from perfect. Messy, fiddly, and — at least in our case — melted. These might be the standard tools, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Technology can help us make the new standard, by either refining functionality, or extending it. This could be either analog or digital — just as long as it meets a real need, and it isn’t just added for novelty.
5. Better, not bigger
How might we improve space efficiency in the kitchen without sacrificing functionality?
Who doesn’t want a bigger kitchen? But with more and more of us congregating to cities — and space at a premium — our kitchens are only getting smaller. But the kitchen of the future doesn’t need to get bigger, it just needs to be more space efficient. There’s a huge opportunity for appliances and equipment that save space, without sacrificing functionality. This could mean products that are easier to store and organize. Or it could mean extending, or bundling, the function of our tools and appliances, so we need less stuff to begin with.
6. Closing the circle
How might we design products which fit into a circular production eco-system?
An intelligent way of handling our resources is essential for the future of our societies and businesses. Besides both environmental and economic benefits, there’s also the plain truth that we simply can’t consume more than the finite supply. Looking forward, we need to go above and beyond recycling. The opportunity here is to move from a linear production system to a circular one, like Cradle to Cradle. It’s based on the principle of an ideal circular economy, where materials are used safely, and potentially infinitely, in cycles. This means that products will be made from recycled materials, with parts that are easily removable, replaceable, and of course recyclable.
7. Automated cooking
How might we support people in their modern lifestyle with the perfect degree of automation?
The dream of the autonomous kitchen isn’t new, and we’ve seen our fair share of both futuristic concepts and realized products. Where we really see the opportunity is in finding that sweet spot between manual and autonomous. It’s pretty clear fully autonomous cooking isn’t the optimal solution — in fact restaurants and takeaways already have that covered. Because cooking is, ultimately, an intrinsically personal, human experience. The dream is to relieve humans of the time-consuming, boring bits, so they can concentrate on the personal bits. So while some processes will have a high degree of automation, others will stay mostly manual.
8. Function is beauty
How might we take inspiration from “extreme users” to design the best possible product?
“Form follows function” is a hollow quote these days. The question is: How would products look if the focus was truly, fully, on functionality? Looking ahead, perhaps functionality alone could be the appealing factor, not aesthetics. One approach is to look at professional equipment and identify solutions that could transfer to a domestic kitchen. Another could be taking a universal design approach. What is it that really makes this product work? Studying the “extreme users” could lead us to think differently on how we design for the many.
9. Eating insects
How might we introduce alternative foods such as insects into the Western diet — to eat and to grow?
The concept of eating insects isn’t new at all. On a global scale, these protein-packed bad boys have been an important part of the diet for millennia. Really, Western cultures are just late to adopt this food trend. But they’re not just good for you, they’re good for the environment. The amount of red meat we consume in the West is an environmental nightmare, and as the population increases, it’s simply unsustainable. Eating insects isn’t so much a trend, as a necessity. The opportunity lies in making insects socially acceptable in the West, to eat and to grow.
10. Shelve the cookbooks
How might we provide intuitive assistance in the kitchen?
People are getting more adventurous in the kitchen, with new ingredients, new techniques, and new equipment… but we need help. New technology, from cognitive computing to augmented reality, has the potential to change the landscape of kitchen, with custom, intuitive, and seamless assistance. This could be simple analog or part of a digital infrastructure. Some products could even be fully automated, but the key thing here is the user is still in charge of cooking. There’s a fine line between helping and, well, being annoying. The ideal assistance has a human “intuitive” quality that knows what information to deliver, and when.
Coming up in part three, we’ll share 10 ideas, initial concepts, and prototypes that could fill these opportunity spaces. Until then, you can always snack on some leftovers with part one of the future of cooking.
