Grocerecycle
A systematic investigation of food waste and an attempt to reduce the amount of food directly destroyed by creating a direct-to-consumer platform.
PROJECT OVERVIEW
How might we improve food supply imbalance, so that less food is wasted and more people have food to eat?
CHALLENGE:
SKILLS:
TOOLS:
TIMELINE:
TEAM MEMBER:
Find the entry point in the large and complex system of food.
Research, Persona, Storyboard, System Modeling, UI design, Prototyping
Zoom, Figma, Mural, Google PowerPoint, Paper, Pen
4 Weeks, April 2021 to May 2021
Zoie Zhou, Qi Luo
Product
Share Information
Reduce waste in your life, such as great tips to extend the shelf life of fresh food
Food Buying
Reducing waste in production, such as selling food that does not meet the shape standards sold in supermarkets but does not affect consumption
The Problem
Topic Mindmap
We chose food as our topic, and in order to find the problem, we conducted a brainstorming session to sort out and analyze the entire system of food production, transportation, distribution, and handling from six aspects. Ultimately, we identified the problem we were trying to solve as food waste.
Food Waste
How might we improve food supply imbalance, so that less food is wasted and more people have food to eat?
This is a big global problem, and to prove the seriousness of the problem, we looked for some data to back us up. 17% of all food available to consumers is wasted, and in 2019, 931 million tons of food sold to households, retailers, restaurants and other food service areas was wasted. The weight of food wasted is roughly equivalent to the total weight of 23 million trucks carrying 40 tons, which together from end to end would be enough to circle the earth seven times. The global food system is putting a tremendous strain on our ecology.
BOT Diagram
And the U.S. is one of the biggest food wasters, and the information we found shows that every year from 2015 to 2020 the U.S. is wasting a lot of food, but at the same time the world's hungry population is decreasing very slowly and there is always a huge food gap.
Our Findings
In order to further analyze the problems in this system, we conducted a lot of research. These studies further showed us that there were various replications of this huge system in the first place.
Concept Map
In this vast system all things are trying to do their part, and its composition includes food itself and human beings. The invisible hand of the market tries to balance the consumption of food and human needs through producers and consumers. But even a 1% shortage of food as a human necessity in a purely market environment without external intervention will increase the price to the point where 1% of the population will be completely unable to afford to have to starve to death. And eat enough, people still need to eat well, eat nutritious, or even eat scarce. This supply chain sustains too many people, and too many industries.
Ecosystem Map
This is our Ecosystem Map. With modern production processes and technologies, the food production system has actually achieved mass production while maintaining quality, and the food preservation and transportation industry is well developed. People in non-poor and war-torn areas can no longer be limited by seasons and transportation to get the food they want, whenever and wherever they want it.
Stock - Flow Diagram
The price of food and the people who are hungry are closely related. The price of food is often subject to a variety of reasons, while an increase in the number of hungry people only requires an increase in the price of food, for whatever reason.
Feedback Loop
And this in turn creates a feedback loop between them. There is always a game of volatility between food prices and production; high prices attract more production, but more production leads to lower prices.
User Journey
A customer who wants to buy food from a grocery store will go through a process like this.
Persona
Based on our life and the information we found, we believe that such users will become our customers after the discussion.
The Solution
Ideation Storyboard
We worked hard to come up with six ideas to try to help make this complex system better, and drew six story boards accordingly.
Final Prototype
After that, we made some trade-offs and integrated the six ideas. In the end, we decided to create an application called Grocerecycle, which would provide information to help reduce food waste and provide a platform for selling local produce and produce that does not meet the grocery store's requirements but does not affect food consumption.
Journey Map
Based on our Application, the user experience will be different.
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Solution System Modeling
User flow is the path that users may take when using this Application. Users are free to choose whether to browse information or shop, and it is not a bad choice to use it simply as an information website.
There are four main structures of the Application, namely Service, About, Donate and Store, and the Service is a collaborative project where people can gain knowledge on how to deal with expired or spoiled food and donate excess food to us to help complete the food cycle. This site, this charity project is a little bit about it. And Store is a platform for local produce and produce that doesn't meet grocery store requirements but doesn't affect food consumption.
Reflection
This project is one that focuses on the analysis system. In fact every problem of a huge system is not difficult to be found, the problem is always there. The complete solution of a huge systemic problem is far from being achieved by a single application. What it needs is more human involvement, and technological advancement. So this software is actually getting more people involved, and reducing some of the waste through transactions. But this is actually also far from enough, during the discussion, we thought about many, many ways, but this huge system involves too many things. In the end, we can only choose the consumer side that we are most familiar with and the best to intervene to start, which has to be a pity, perhaps we should think about the way to solve the problem from a higher level.