Reimagine Food Waste at Home with Pantrol
To inspire everyone to change their relationship with food
About
This project was the 2º place winner of a Hackathon from a partnership between Earth Hacks and Amerikahaus among other companies.
Motivation: As a person who thrives for change and to support Sustainable Development, I have accepted the challenge of presenting an impactful solution to bring a new perspective on sustainable food management along the supply chain.
Design Challenges
We had a lot of assumptions that we were not able to test due to time constraints, however this is part of a hackathon’s format. Leaving aside the judgment thoughts, rely on heavy research and deliver fast solutions that the group believes can generate high impact with low effort.
Project
Pantry Database and Management
Timeline
2022
Target User
Young adults, adults (USA & Sweden)
My Role
Research, Information Architecture, User Experience, Visual Designer
3D asset created in Blender
What was the pain point?
Food waste is a global problem. It burdens waste management systems, exacerbates food insecurity, contributes to biodiversity and habitat loss, and is a major contributor to global climate change. Approximately 931 million tonnes of food are wasted globally each year, with 61% from households, 26% from the food service industry, and 13% from the retail sector. Globally, food waste accounts for 8-10% of carbon emissions and costs the economy approximately $936 billion a year. In 2021, the United Nations Environment Programme Food Waste Index Report approximated that 17% of global food production is wasted. In order to address food waste on a global scale, Pantrol was created to help people at the household level prevent and significantly reduce their food waste.
690 million people went hungry in 2019 - with this number expected to rise.
Existing Solutions
There are a few solutions available in the market at this moment, they offer:
• Food donation;
• Deals from grocery shops, restaurants or coffee shops;
• Grocery shopping list and limited pantry management.
Our team believe that there is room to improvement, each solution available now works by itself, limiting what the user could do to feel more in control to avoid food loss. The problem starts in the grocery store, where overconsuption happens for different reasons.
Our vision is to hold hands with the end user in the entire process, we don't only want to donate food so it doesn't expire, we want to create a solution that enable full control of buying, storing and consuming, thus the user can avoid overspending money and purchase without thinking, in the first place.
Olio App - Similar Solution
How did we solve it?
A personalized food database is built for each user based on the items entered into Pantrol. Users will receive notifications when their food is about to expire. This notification provides the user with options to either incorporate the item in suggested recipes or to donate the food. For users who participate in a community composting program or engage in at home composting, instructions on how to properly compost each item are provided.
Additionally, Pantrol creates a customized grocery shopping list based on the user’s logged food database and previous grocery shopping history. Thus, allowing the user to know exactly what items they have at home and what items they need to buy. This function helps the user to prevent and minimize their food waste as well as save money by notifying the user that they already own the item and do not need to purchase it.
Companies that elect to put the Pantrol stamp with a QR Code on their products are also encouraged to provide additional product information, such as a easy scan the expiring date and third-party sustainability certifications to show the user that their company is transparent about their products and are committed to reducing food waste.
App Prototype
How it works
The Process
Created in Adobe Illustrator
1. Empathize / Debrief • 2. Research / Explore • 3. Define / Ideate • 4. Create / Design
Research Insights
Target Audience
It is important to define the parcel of the population that will likely use our solution. With this strategy, I can choose the right communication strategy, and test it with the right target audience to make sure the flow and messages are clear and easy to use.
To build this profile I conducted three interviews and a survey with twelve people in just an afternoon, with the purpose to gather insights and deny or verify a hypothesis.
The insights gathered was:
• Most of the people feel bad about expired food when they find it at home.
• 75% of the people find it easy or very easy to buy what one needs from the grocery store.
• 58,3% of the people are very likely to often buy duplicate and unnecessary items.
Created in Adobe Illustrator
Insight from Survey
People find easy to do the groceries list, although people often buy duplicate food and find expired food in their pantry.
Created in Adobe Illustrator - 8 Interviews was conducted to create this Persona Profile
User Story
• As Paulo, I want to have a clear picture of my pantry, so I can feel more in control.
Created in Adobe Illustrator
After deep research on the causes of the problem, it was time to identify a clear Problem Statement with a How might we.
This exercise is important to narrow down the research phase and bring direction to the ideation step, it shouldn't be too broad or too narrow.
User Journey
Created in Figma
Information Architecture
Created in Figma
Flow Study
Created in Figma
Low Fidelity prototype Study
First wireframe draft, following the flow study, with the intention of planning levels of information, structure and intended behaviour.
The mockups were first designed in grayscale to define the visual hierarchy with contrast, size, position, proportion and typography.
I selected two fonts to compose the screens, Itim and Kantumruy. I used Itim for titles with the intention to give a user friendly approach, while Kantumruy was used for subtitles and paragraphs. After some testing, I could understand that overusing Itim font would result in unpleasant visuals and make it hard to read information.
The colors
I simply love picking colors for the project! My strategy was to use colors that were food related, also to influence some action, linking with environment and nature.
red: shade was selected as the main color, working as a call to action color, but still gentle and warming.
Black: shade mixed with a little bit of red to be used on the text to match the primary color.
Off White AND SAND: shades to be used as background and middle level respectively, so I could have some contrast between these colors.
Green: shade, vibrant, to be used as little as possible, and show the user the great action they took towards helping the environment.
Prototype's overview in figma
Conclusion
We, as a team, were very satisfied with the end result given the timeframe to work on this project. We achieved second place in the competition.
I believe that spending solid time doing deep research and setting a target audience from the beginning was crucial to further develop the product in the right direction, and it was part of the end success.
Therefore, I understand that more user testing is necessary to validate if the visual design is working as planned, but due to time constraints we needed to move forward.