“FeedBack”
Multi-platform food waste reduction tool for Second Harvest
Project Timeframe — 2 weeks
Team size — 11 people
Client — Second Harvest
Style — Agile with Research, Planning and Design Phrases Sprint and occasional Scrum
My role — Research & Teamplayer
As a student of RED Academy, we had a chance to research on an open-ended topic of reducing food waste for Second Harvest — one of the Toronto-based charities focusing on food rescue and stopping hunger.
On the first week, we were divided into three sub-teams and each team research on one sector: consumer food waste, business food waste and about Second Harvest.
Research
I was in the sub-team of business food waste and research on business’ contribution on food waste. We researched on questions such as: what consider as food waste? who wasted most food? how does the food production processing contribute to food waste? can food waste reduction be done at prevention level during food production or can food waste be eliminated at rescue level when leftovers are made? what are the current strategies business owners use to reduce food waste?
We found out:
- Food that is discarded or not eaten is considered as food waste to most people and over 30 percent of fruits and vegetables in North America don’t even make it onto store shelves because they’re not pretty enough for picky consumers
- 47% of waste in Canada happens at home, 20% occur in packaging and processing, 10% of farms, 10% at retail stores such as supermarket and grocery shops, 9% at restaurants and hotels, 4% during transportation and distributions
- Food safety concerns and regulations are a factor that affects the ability of business owners to rescue food, for example, if a product has passed code date, can it still be donated to feed people?
- Restaurants cannot receive a tax credit for donated food because Canadian law does not allow for it
- Different programs such as the Save Food Program founded and led by FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization at Rome, Italy) and Messe Düsseldorf (located in Germany) use awareness campaign, collaboration with partnership, policy, strategy, program development and investment programs and interventions to stop and educate about food waste
- If restaurants needs to reduce food waste, they will need to train employees to implement Restaurant Waste Management and Waste Audit by monitoring and analysis garbage and classify waste to weight in how much food purchasing money is lost
- There are many recommended ideas for restaurants to reduce food waste out there, such as identify your menu to see which dish creates the most food waste, make food purchasing wisely according to needs, educate staff on proper food handling, use high-quality kitchen storage equipment and change your plates according to what’s available
- Multiple apps also allowing businesses to connect with consumers regarding food that’s been made and would be thrown out to be bought at a discounted price (eg. flashfood, ubifood)
Since we found out individual consumers contribute to 47% of the overall food waste and fruits/vegetables get wasted the most at farms or supermarkets due to the demand for aesthetically pleasing products by consumers, I suggested that we should focus our solutions on individual consumers to make the most impact.
The other sub-team also looked into what Second Harvest does. Second Harvest collect surplus food from large-scale donors and has a complex vetting process for its donor. Second Harvest usually collect their food through phone calls and their drivers will pick up the food and distribute the collected food to its networked community centre or non-profit food agencies. Non-profit food agencies will pick up whatever food that’s available from the driver, and either prepared cooked meals or allow food pick up for their food receivers. Second Harvest would like to expand their services to small-scale donors and help out more people in hunger.
Planning
The second week, research continues and the planning team determined 5 potential Personas. They are the small-scale food donors, food receiver, food delivery driver, Second Harvest staff and Second Harvest executive.
I contributed by simplifying the Personas (showing 4 main ones only) into three-liners in the format of:
a) what are they thinking now
b) what do they want
c) what motivated them to do what they did
for easy understanding and use at report or presentation:
1) Persona one — named Donor — it is our small-scale food donor
a. Feel wasteful when food is being wasted yet don’t know what to do or how to make a difference
b. Would love to be provided a way that he/she can “re-purpose” excessive food
c. His or her motivation is determined by his/her need of helping others, walk the talk by doing what’s right
2) Persona two — named Recipient — it is our food receiver
a. Living on low-income with children and realize healthy food is expensive
b. Would love to have healthy food for her children
c. Motivated by saving money and be able to provide the best for her family
3) Persona three—named Advocate — it is our Second Harvest executive
a) Lack of control over supply and demand as surplus food donation only get notice whenever available through phone call
b) Hope to offer partnered food distribution agency who are now receiving Second Harvest surplus food to have more choices of food and options to provide to the food recipients
c) Motivated by providing food security and healthy food to communities and families in need
4) Persona four— named Rescuer — it is our Second Harvest food pick up driver
a. Wish more food could be picked up and deliver to those in need and the current driving and pick up system might not support this need
b. Wish to pick up and deliver more healthy food to community centers and every shift
c. Motivated by being satisfied with what he does — his day job
Opportunity:
I was also in the prototyping team and had the chance to elaborate all the platform opportunities for this project.
“Platform” is elaborated from all digital presence (mobile, tablet, desktop, TV, touch screen stands, touch screen on any industrial products) to all physical platforms such as different agency connections, food drop-off/delivery locations, how food drivers communicate with each other to all accessible locations for food.
While the Planning team has the Personas in mind, we identify the opportunity to create a multi-platform solution to align these personas with Second Harvest’s goal of food rescue and stopping hunger:
Donor
Who are likely to have higher income and iPhone, so we will develop an IOS app for them to reducing their impact on food waste
Non-profit Food Agency
Its staffs are likely to be in an office environment, therefore a web-base desktop monitoring dashboard would be ideal for them to manage nutrient-rich food donations and make them available to those experiencing hunger
Food Receiver
Who are more likely to be lower income using an Android phone, so we will plan an Android app for them to access healthy affordable food through the non-profit agency
Second Harvest
Who would like to oversee the food drivers’ delivery process and the vetted non-profit agencies’ food receiving process from the driver
Therefore a multi-platform solution containing an IOS app, an Andriod app, and a web-based monitoring dashboard is born.
We looked into the navigation and user experience and narrowed down to WealthSimple, UberEat and Zomato can be our referenced apps to build upon. We like how WealthSimple simplified its sign up process, UberEat’s idea of showing driving and estimated time at its food delivering app and how Zomato offers upscale dining experiences to its users.
For branding, our team had looked into Spoiler Alert and Food Connect, but having an easy-to-navigate and a joyful experience in mind, I suggested the Coca-Cola and Waze as our reference brand look since they are welcoming, approachable, delightful, simple and fun.
Last but not least, throughout the process, we continue to research. We found food receivers often feel shameful having the need of receiving food, therefore we would like to treat them as Diners instead by offering a joyful, respected and honoured upscale food “ordering” and receiving experience.
Based on the above, we came up with core features and supporting features to tie all ideas together:
- The activities of drivers, donors, and nonprofit agencies will be synced and accessible real-time
- Donors will be able to donate their surplus food conveniently through the app
- Drivers will be able to use location mapping system to see where the food are and where it needs to go. They will also be able to communicate inside the app
- Nonprofit agencies will be able to keep track their inventory as well as the flow of incoming and outgoing food
- Diners will be able to see what food is available to them in their feed and locate a nearby agency
Supporting Features:
- An internal instant messaging system between donors, drivers and agencies to arrange food exchanges.
- Google map integration to allow the donors, drivers, diners and agencies to see their respective location and what is around them.
- Homepage feed with information about what donations are available to agencies, and what agencies are looking for donations.
- Web-based interface for nonprofit agencies and Second Harvest to monitor the donation processes.
I participated in the overall feature brainstorming and feature prioritization discussion. I also helped out drafting out the first draft of our research and planning report for Second Harvest while the design team designing and user testing their wireframe to high-fidelity works.
Design
Clickable Prototype
Prototype of the donor flow: https://invis.io/XS98RK05F
Prototype of the diner flow: https://invis.io/YH94GA7TD
Roadmap
Project Funding and The Development
This project is going to be partnered with Walmart Foundation and an interactive agency called MetalLab ( http://metalab.co ) to bring it to live.
My Learning
Working on this open-ended project with open-ended research at an agile environment is definitely my major learning. I saw how much research can be gathered from 11 people and how open-ended research can lead to all kind of features, options and solutions, in this case, our research lead us from the pre-determined one Native app design stated on the brief to a multi-platform solution. This learning will definitely help me get started at real organization’s researches, which I believe, they will just be as massive and confusing at times. But, we will find the solution!
Other UXUI projects: SafeMap, AskMom, Kensington is Kensington, Connects Fashion Professional, A Trackable Start for Eva’s Initiatives
