Consuming food instead of wasting

In the Netherlands, about 50% of the food is wasted in the consumer phase (Netherlands Nutrition Centre, 2014). Wasting food has an enormous impact on the environment and on social-economical aspects for example. To address this problem, a product is designed according to the Vision in Product design approach (Hekkert & Van Dijk, 2011) to decrease consumer food waste. This project is executed in collaboration with Milieu Centraal (The Netherlands). Only avoidable food waste will be taken into account, whereby the analysis pays particular attention to food waste in the Netherlands. General motives of consumers to waste food include wrong planning, hygiene or a lack of knowledge. Also developments as the elongation of the food supply chain increase food waste. Additional consumer research showed consumers emotions from purchase to discarding. Steps in the beginning of this chain were in general experienced positive, final steps however, were negatively experienced, especially discarding. In order to change behaviour pro-environmentally, literature about sustainable behaviour and design for (sustainable) behaviour change has been reviewed. This information, together with the information from the analysis is further complemented with trends and developments around the subject of food waste. Aspects considered as relevant, interesting and original are combined into drivers. It became apparent that the main driver around food waste is the gap between thinking and doing. To intervene in this context a statement was defined: I want people in the supermarket to anticipate on their food purchases by giving them trust and making them feel proud about doing Together with the interaction and product qualities, it formed the starting point for the ideation phase. Eventually, a selection of the ideas with potential was made and the idea 'Packaging' was chosen. The product helps people combine their groceries in the supermarket and makes them feel proud about doing so. In the detailing phase, this idea was transformed into a realistic product. The Value Mapping Tool (Bocken et al., 2013) is used to discover what values are exchanged between the involved stakeholders, including the environment. Also the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (Joyce, Paquin, & Pigneur, 2015) is used to show the social and environmental benefits and impacts of the design. To conclude this project, a final evaluation is carried out and revealed that the design has potential to decrease food waste.