04 Wasteify
Just in Australia alone, food services produce more than 250,000 tonnes of food waste every year, generating around 400,000 tonnes of greenhouse gasses annually. Looking at the worldwide scale 1/3 of all the food being produced is actually wasted. As a result of the massive food waste problem, the retail sector faces both economic and environmental losses. Wasteify will solve this problem.
I have noticed how stores put surplus food up for sale just to throw it out because no one bought it before it expired. From personal experience when working in restaurants, I have noticed how much food is wasted due to over production of products. This is and has always been a hard problem to tackle because underproduction can mean a loss of revenue for a business which all businesses are trying to prevent.
43% of all food that is thrown away comes from homes, 16% from farms, 2% from manufacturing, and 40% from restaurants, grocery stores, and food service companies.
There are three main reasons why I believe this is happening. The first reason is that it’s impossible for businesses to predict where having under production can mean a loss in revenue which no business wants.
The second reason is that it’s an inefficient market at the moment where there is a lack of visibility. What I mean by that is for example when you are in a grocery store you can see aisles filled with food but you can only see that there is a discount to save that food if you actually are in the store holding that package.
The last reason has to do with consumer demand where we all want our supermarkets to basically become whole foods and have these never-ending glass cases filled with fresh food.
Supermarket shelves are often bare of perfectly edible fresh produce because it does not meet the optimal criteria, such as shape, size and colour for consumers. It is not uncommon for retailers and consumers to simply toss food that is near, at, or beyond the "best-before" date - even though it is within its "use-by" date. A large amount of food is being wasted due to lack of visibility where not enough people notice the food available before it is thrown out.
Design a TWO-SIDED platform for businesses and consumers to reduce the food wastage effortlessly
I have chosen a survey as the first method of my primary research organised on the site surveymonkey.com. The demographic was mainly young adults of both genders living in Sweden and Australia. My screening question was to ensure people are spending money on food themselves and could be my target group. Here I got to know that 90% of the people were spending 60$ or more per week.
The concluding phase of my research involved conducting user interviews with five different participants. I assigned three specific tasks to these users to evaluate my prototype. This process was crucial as it allowed both the users and myself to identify and address errors and areas for improvement within the prototype, paving the way for the development of the final design.
The design concept of the customisable dashboard for Telstra Connect revolves around user empoIrment and flexibility. The dashboard allows users to tailor their interface by simply pressing the "Add Widgets" button. This opens a menu where users can choose from a variety of widgets—each representing different features or data elements relevant to their telecom management needs. Adding a widget is as straightforward as selecting it from the menu and placing it on the dashboard.
