Cibi
Empowering and incentivizing the reduction of food waste.
Overview
The aim of this project is to reduce food waste in the restaurant industry, with a specific focus on consumer plate waste. The project targets restaurants in the US, recognizing the significant economic and environmental impact of food waste within this sector. By addressing consumer behavior and providing transparency on portion sizes, the project seeks to promote informed decision-making and incentivize waste reduction.
Tools
Figma
Miro
Canva
Team
Independent Project
My Role
Service Design
UX Research
Ideation
Prototyping
Timeline
6 months
The Problem
22-33 billion pounds of food waste is generated by restaurants in the US annually according to the National Restaurant Association. This costs restaurants $151 billion on average annually and contributes greatly to the total US food loss impact of 170 million tons of green house gas emissions.
A large factor of food waste in restaurants comes from consumer plate waste. 30-40% of food served to consumers is wasted, averaging about 85 lbs per customer annually
Root Problem
30-40% of food served to guests is wasted, averaging 85 pounds per customer annually.
The Solution
A comprehensive application and service designed to foster better communication, facilitate informed decision-making, incentivize action and awareness for consumers to reduce consumer plate waste. Aligning the interests of consumers and stakeholders, this tool integrates with existing systems and aims to enhance efficiency for businesses and their employees, providing continuous feedback and promoting sustainability and reduction of waste
Discovery
Understanding the restaurant industry
Leveraging my extensive industry experience of over 15 years, I dedicated my expertise to mapping the landscape and conducting a detailed case study analysis of the industry and sustainable issues within.
Why Sustainability?
Sustainability is crucial for the restaurant industry as consumers seek eco-friendly practices and global efforts aim to reduce environmental impact. Making sustainable practices and choices convenient is key to fostering adoption. While progress has been seen, a collective industry shift towards sustainability is necessary to meet consumer demands and shape a more environmentally and socially responsible future.
In the US, 30-40% of food served to guests is wasted. Totaling an estimated 22-33 billion tons, or 85 lbs per consumer and costing the restaurant industry 151 billions annually.
The restaurant industry has the highest churn rate of any industry at 75%. This costs the restaurants $5,864 per employee that leaves.
Restaurants use 5-7 times more energy than other commercial buildings. Restaurants spend about $2,500 per month on average for utilities such as and electric and gas.
Focusing on food waste
For this project I used a local restaurant in Savannah as inspiration and design lab. Looking at the top sustainability issues in the restaurant industry through the lense of this restaurant food waste emerged as the area ripe for innovation.
Research
Leaning into my industry expertise I Identified key stakeholder. Through authoethnography, observation, as well as surveys and contextual interviews with front of the house and back of the house employees as well as managers and customers from around the US, I was able to get a diverse perspective on the industry.
Targeting users and employees while focusing the project on food waste the key research objectives were:
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Understand the perception of consumer plate waste in elevated dine-in restaurants in the US.
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Identify key factors contributing to consumer plate waste and the pain points for both customers and restaurant operators.
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Understand the business environment, needs and challenges.
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Understand the consumers, their needs, motivations and barriers
Insights and Analysis
Customers
Customers struggle understanding portion sizes and often over order. They lack awareness of the issue, their personal impact as well as motivation to change
Restaurants and employees
Restaurant businesses and employees are resistant to change and are already overburdened and do not have the capacity to take on another task.
Restaurants attract a wide variety of users and employees. As this project is looking at changing behavior to reduce food waste it was important to come up with a solution that aligned with the universal needs targeting a broader audiance instead of just a niche.
The service needs to:
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Increase awareness of food waste issue and individual impact
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Improve communication of portion sizes to enable informed decision making
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Employ a mix of different types of incentives
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Provide a tool for employees and business that improvees efficiency
Most of all the service needs to provide conveniance and efficiency to the business and employees as well as the consumers. Making sustainable choices and reducing food waste should not come at the expense of conveniance.
Solution Prototype
User Problem
Customers frequently overorder because they struggle to gauge appropriate portion sizes.
Menu Visualization
With improved communication through menu visualization, informed decision-making is facilitated, empowering consumers to reduce overordering and, as a result, decrease consumer plate waste.
Portion Size Ranking
Fun, descriptive, and easily recognizable ranking system for portion sizes, complete with intuitive icons.
User Generated Content
User generated content gives the user a way to be heard as well as provides other users with unbiased information. Content is generated through questions designed to reduce cognitve load utilizing mixed input methods and progress saving
User Problem
Stakeholder adoption faces challenges due to business and workers' resistance to change and limited capacity for additional responsibilities
User Generated Content
Utilizing user generated content provides users with improved content while reducing the burden of the business to generate and provide
Seamless Integration
Seamlessly integrating with the POS, operational efficiency is improved alleviating burden on the workers. Product information and availabilty easily and seamlessly communicated through POS and menu
Continuous Feedback
Pictures and data are collected from reviews and waste tracking. Utilizing AI they are scanned to provide the business with feedback such as which dishes are generating the highest satisfaction or the greatest waste.
User Problem
Users struggle with motivation in reducing their waste due to diverse motivations and needs as well as a lack of awareness of the issue of food waste and their personal impact
Progress Tracking
Progress tracking is provided to help users monitor their efforts along with access to educational content, such as creative recipes for reusing leftovers or composting.
Community
Tapping into the social aspect of human nature, providing a community hub to share tips, recipes and knowledge, inherently providing inspiration, motivation and accountability.
Incentivization
Employing a variety of incentives including community, social recognition, financial and completion, to target a wide range of users instead of focusing solely on one user group. This approach aims to have a greater impact in driving behavior change and reducing food waste.
Completion
Social
Financial
