Design tools and digital solutions to promote sustainable food for People and Planet.
The project responds to the challenge of reducing the food-chain impact of the Frassati Cooperative (Turin-Italy) finding and testing new solutions for 5 night-shelters for the homeless, welcoming 100 people per day.
Studio SHIFT designed a digital solution that helps trace the emissions during the path of food and measure the positive impact of Frassati's food-recovery practice. We prove the design approach can bring innovation to a complex challenge, opening-up solutions to a wider target.
Local
Italy
Municipality of Turin
Mainly urban
It refers to other types of transformations (soft investment)
No
No
Yes
2023-01-30
As a representative of an organisation
Name of the organisation(s): Studio Shift srl SB Type of organisation: Benefit Company First name of representative: Elena Enrica Last name of representative: Giunta Gender: Female Nationality: Italy Function: CEO, Design director Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Via Latteria, 179 Town: Talamona Postal code: 23018 Country: Italy Direct Tel:+39 349 424 2471 E-mail:design@studioshift.it Website:http://www.studioshift.it/
The Frassati Cooperative (Turin - Italy), has been involved for years in helping serious marginalization: it manages 5 city services for the homeless, welcoming 100 people every day with food and accommodation. The cooperative recovers "leftover" food of large-scale distribution as a raw material for meals cooked in these services. The FRASSATI FOOdPRINT project intends to respond to the need of the Frassati Cooperative carrying out a path of analysis, systematization, prototyping and, finally, implementation of a methodology and digital tools with multiple objectives. Among these: measuring, increasing and perfecting the impact of the Cooperative's food recovery and environmental sustainability actions; maintain and improve the health condition of homeless people; foster the development of a culture of sustainable and healthy food within the Cooperative's services and among citizens.
Studio shift has accepted this challenge, which has become an opportunity to demonstrate how even a digital product (a software) - properly co-created - can contribute to a significant community growth. As said, the project concretely responds to the challenges of five night shelters for the homeless in the city of Turin, with the goal to redesign the food chain, tracing and measuring the impact of the Cooperative's food recovery practice, and -in long term- helping to predic and improve the decisions in terms of food diets and related supplies preserving as best the healthy of final users/beneiciaries.
The main design interventions are focused in the following phases/outcomes:
- current supply chain analysis and its redesign (increased effectiveness and efficiency)
- user research and co-design actions
- the digital solution, mainly for staff needs
- analog solutions, or communication supportive artifacts, mainly for homeless engagement, to increase food awareness and education (better habits)
CO-DESIGN
DIGITAL SOLUTION
SOCIAL INNOVATION
SUSTAINABLE FOOD
HOMELESS
Starting from shadowing and quantify-qualitative research, Studio SHIFT interventions have been accurately balanced not to stress the organization but to gently insert and change the system from the inside. The logic of the web app, as well as all the design outcomes, has been designed to accommodate the modus operandi of the final users and the Cooperative professionals working in the shelters and in the central kitchen.
Studio SHIFT released a digital solution that enabled the Cooperative to measure, analyze and improve the food recovery chain: through an algorithm that operates starting from the cook recipes gives information about carbon and water productive consumption and about the total amount of cooked food divided by the recovered from the purchase. This idea to start from recipes vs food storage, for example, has been a crucial change in the concept development, born thanks to the observation of current organizational habits.
Calculating the impact of recovered food means making the most of the non-consumption of additional CO2 for a new food or for the waste otherwise produced. Furthermore, the engagement of a nutritionist along the process gave the project a deeper understanding of the health side of the matter: she suggested some general rules to plan a healthy diet finding the best balance between macronutrients (that compose different foods) and practical possibilities of the kitchen’s staff (economic availability and time to cook).
In this line, a third result in terms of the long-term sustainability of the project has been the introduction of co-designed graphic reminders: visual suggestions (signals and wayfinding for collective dining rooms of homeless centers ) that raise awareness on various topics linked to nutrition, health and environmental impact of personal choices; e.g. reminders about the importance of drinking water, eating some fruits and/or vegetables every day, suggestions about how to recycle waste correctly, etc.
We need to practice a Beauty that knows how to adapt to the changes that the future holds for us, without de-empowering it (Fuad-Luke). Every human artifact, tangible or intangible, refers to an aesthetic that represents visions of Beauty that are collectively approved, verified, and economically viable. Aesthetics and functionality must integrate by highlighting insights, relationships, and key aspects in an intuitive way. In our project, aesthetics has the function of improving the perception of the message without ever compromising functional aspects; e.g. data science is used to increase the usability of data, making it more accessible, understandable, and usable.
In the FRASSATI FOOdPRINT project, Beauty is expressed in accurate and extremely easy-to-use visual solutions (both digital and analog) in which, thanks to graphic design, all the most important information has been translated into visual language. Icons, symbols, and illustrations have been used as a transversal, cross-cultural, fundamental code to promote discussions and support collective decision-making processes. Both in the process and about solutions, the choice of visual code has reduced the necessity to write or decode complex texts and has been perceived as a key making people at ease, experiencing a horizontal dimension of thought sharing.
It is important to note, better understanding this choice, that final users are homeless people with a variety of geographical origins, personal stories, and levels of mental and physical well-being. Therefore, with explicit reference to the NEB principle of "inclusion (together)", the proposed design solution looks at the well-being of disadvantaged groups who have the same right as others to enjoy efficient services and good aesthetic quality.
From our professional point of view, inclusion means being capable to welcome the different needs of the people involved and processing them towards a unique value proposition. In the FRASSATI FOOdPRINT project, we practiced true co-creation to assure an active involvement of all stakeholders in the entire design process (co-design + co-production). Participants were able to express and share their experiences, discuss and negotiate their roles and interests, and bring positive change together.
Co-design | participatory tools have been used as the main pretext and opportunity for mediation, activating new dialogues between staff, educators, and the homeless. SHIFT designed a couple of tools, also very helpful to engage final users in all development phases of the project and decision making: the first one (Diary) to discover eating habits and evaluate, thanks to this phenomenological data, what kind of rules and suggestions introduce to promote better food choices; the second one (Wheel of macronutrients) enable final users to design 10 new recipes whit a healthy and balanced standard. Thanks to this second design tool (used during the co-design sessions) the shelter’s guests took an active role, expressing appreciation and desires, and contributing to the decision-making process.
Co-production | As said, for the educators and Cooperatives’ staff, we design a digital platform: a software tracking the whole recovery chain with a double outcome: 1\ to make the staff able to trace numbers (e.g. kg of meals*months, km*meal delivery, the energy they used for cooking) checking the efficiency of flow; 2\ to visualize collected data with the aim to communicate and significantly involve the "audience” (stakeholders, citizens, NGOs, users) driving future choices.
Tracing food systems and their principal numbers will help them in ordinary practice; without forgetting the long-term potential of collected data, in terms of advocacy, reputation, and fundraising actions.
Food consumption and its impact is not a new topic at all. There are numerous apps on the market for calculating one's environmental impact, generally limited to carbon footprint and based on a "macro-tracking” of lifestyle habits (home, transport, purchases). These calculators do not allow us to trace the entire food supply chain. Similarly, there is numerous software for calculating the diet according to health criteria, with the main purpose of tracking calories, and often combining sporting advice.
These kinds of digital solutions place great emphasis on physical goals and only secondarily do they help people or groups (e.g. kids, teenagers, organized social groups - school, CDD, senior centers, etc.) to question themselves about food related to personal well-being, nor arguing about direct effects of eating habits on the Planet. On the contrary, we trust this approach will be crucial for increasing a wider communities’ awareness and massive behavioral change results; we can work today on adults’ education projects to push environmentally sustainable food chains for the near future.
As usual in Design research (clinical), we start from a specific problem/case and are proven to solutions able to answer to a wider public. In fact, even starting from the specific needs of Frassati Cooperative, concerning 100-person meals per day, we find a set of digital plus analog products with a bigger, scalable, use and impact. The Cooperative is already expanding some of the project actions to other groups of beneficiaries of its own system: to give a number, only during 2021 Frassati Cooperative gave support to more than 5k beneficiaries in 72 different services, in Turin and surroundings.
Dreaming big, we can imagine these tools to be open for wide audiences (particularly thinking about public schools) and used as a way to support the ever-more necessary change of our current mindset about food to a new one, able to contribute pushing the current Overshoot Day trend.
The FRASSATI FOOdPRINT project is one of the 5 projects selected by the call “Wonder. Experiments in design for social innovation" in 2022, promoted by Circolo del Design together with Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo and Torino Social Impact. The call was aimed at third-sector organizations operating in the Turin area matching with designers from all over Italy. Both have been proposed to develop design projects that generate innovative solutions and services with a social impact, and that at the same time respond to the challenge of the green transition.
Behind the call, there was a long and precious journey, started in March 2021 and led by promoters, of matching -first- and capacity building -later- between Social enterprises, which were asked to give the challenges, and selected Italian designers (mostly agencies or studios but also individuals) active in social innovation fields, that have been identified as able to produce sustainable social solutions.
Starting from 56 applications received, 12 social enterprises and 14 designers have been selected for the matching phase. These participants went through a capacity-building phase by which 11 projects were actually candidates, matching 1 social organization + 1 designer. Studio SHIFT has been selected among the 5 finalists, in tandem with Frassati Cooperative: this collaborative relationship has the goal to face the challenge of good food for people (homeless) and the Planet.
This process of the tender, uncommon and definitely innovative in the Italian funding scenario, has been aimed to enhance and to give greater evidence to the value of co-creation processes, particularly where different domains met and share visions, as was the experience of the stakeholders mentioned.
How could Design discipline, with its experience in facilitating and activating communities, support such participation in the development of future imaginaries? In Massive Codesign, Meroni et al. (2018) argued that a crucial question is how to lead groups to practice “joint investigation and imagination” through co-design. It is described as a process in which different people together explore and define a problem and collectively develop and evaluate its solutions.
In the project, the intervention of the Design starts from an eco-systemic approach and reaches the realization of a DataViz product (composed of management software and a system of visual return of the data, on an annual basis, which can be queried) and a series of design tool for sustainable food education. The project is also a social design initiative, which has the aim of including people who are usually cut off from the world of work and the market.
Studio SHIFT dive deeply into Frassati “world” working with the multi-disciplinat team of educator and social workeer of the Cooperative. The service coordinators brought their knowledge of the services, teams they coordinate, and final users themselves. Their support has been precious also considering the knowledge of current legislation, local context (Turin), and the main institutional actors with which the services relate. They will support Studio SHIFT in assessment, study, and analysis activities.
The project activities were oriented toward the optimization of the food chain and raising greater awareness about both nutritious and low-carbon diets. The impact pursued was centered on environmental and social change. According to the phases, the concrete outputs are the new food-system map, eating Diaries (user research), FOOdPRINT software, the Wheel of macronutrients helpful for recipe composition, and sustainable food signage. These two latter tools will be easily re-used in other places and services of the Frassati network. Furthermore, in order to preserve uneaten food and reduce the use of plastic bottles a welcome kit (reusable containers and water bottles) for the shelter’s guests were realized.
In terms of long-term outcomes, the food chain tracked through the software solution resulted in an information system about warehouse loading and unloading management, food preservation, CO2 and water print measurement. Nutritious and eco-friendly recipes were created together in order to improve the meals cooked for the shelters. Tracking the food that implies the most environmental impact allowed us to consider it to be less damaging to the planet, to reduce food waste contributing to the circular industrial ecosystem, and not to give up more nutritious diet ingredients. The outgrowth for Frassati Cooperative and final users is concerning new awareness about food and its environmental impact: keeping a food diary and reflecting together about healthy and environmentally-sustainable food, enabled us to raise awareness and bring impact upon the daily routines of shelter guests. With the ambition of fostering the development of both sustainable and healthy food culture, graphic material was produced and positioned within the shelters -now- and the other Cooperative structures such as youngsters’ communities, social housing, and schools -in the future- to educate the next generation of consumers to contain, reduce or mitigate their own food choices.
The FRASSATI FOOdPRINT concept is based on the so-called Inverted Pyramid. The first Food Pyramid, conceived in 1992 by the US Department of Agriculture, explained how to adopt a balanced diet, focusing on energy density for individual health. Going up in the pyramid, we progressively find foods with increasing energy density, which should be consumed less frequently. As in a mirror, an Inverted Pyramid is now proposed to complete the picture: it positions foods considering their impact on the environment and Planet's health. The impact is measured on the basis of three key factors: generation of greenhouse gases (Carbon Footprint); consumption of water resources (Water Footprint); land use (Ecological Footprint). Thanks to this new elaboration, it is demonstrated that if one assumes the traditional Food Pyramid as a diet, not only one lives better, longer, and healthier, but one obtains a decidedly smaller impact (a footprint) on the environment.
Ultimately, each of us by assuming a responsible attitude in terms of food can reconcile our own well-being (ecology of the person) with the environment (ecology of the context).
As written, some already existing digital solutions are focused on carbon-print calculation (not specifically taking care of food chains), or on the other side, they used food tracking to take a big picture in terms of calories and energy needs/reduction, mainly with weight loss goals. Our digital solution combines these two perspectives and integrates, due to the co-created UX - User Experience, the dimension of real-time monitoring of one's own food system (both on a company scale and individual/family) with multiple goals that relate healthy needs to better control of Planet’s resources consumption. Real-time data help users to objectively reflect on habits as well as to anticipate/plan for happier (in terms of health and food education) and more aware (in terms of reducing environmental impact) purchasing and consumption choices.
The design intervention goes across the following phases/outcomes basically taking the Double Diamond of the design thinking process in the background.
CURRENT SUPPLY CHAIN ANALYSIS AND ITS REDESIGN
This first phase has been a deep analysis of the current system: it envisaged an initial internal mapping of the Frassati system and services in which food is transformed and/or consumed, on the basis of an interpretative scenario (DOS Design Orienting Scenario); this allowed us to initiate systemic reasoning about the organization. Then, we planned a direct interaction with some service representatives to delve into 2/3 services (where food comes from the Food Recovery circuits) asking the coordinators to model the "food tour" with us, tracking from collection to consumption. We design a card game help to us understand where and how to improve the recovery food chain. The results of this modeling will help to create a system map able to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of current practices.
USER RESEARCH AND CO-DESIGN ACTIONS
The second phase consists of quantify-qualitative research with final users (both staff and homeless). Here the aim is to explore professional and feeding routines, in order to imagine better UX designs, and explore the need for final analog supports (e.g. meals diaries, lunch boxes for extra food, signage for collective dining room) in synergy with the software.
DIGITAL SOLUTIONS, MAINLY FOR STAFF NEEDS
The third phase delivered the software (developed at the MVP stage): a practical tool that social workers can use to track and manage food from donation to consumption. We design a Beta version, that has been tested for a month, and a final one.
ANALOG SOLUTIONS, OR COMMUNICATION-SUPPORTIVE ARTIFACTS
This last step, reinforcing the third one, consisted of signals (visual reminders about better food routines) and the other visual artifact already mentioned to nurture adults’ food education, with an environmental focus.
The highest level of replicability of FRASSATI FOOdPRINT is constituted by both the methodology and the products. Studio SHIFT was able to understand the essential touchpoint of Frassati’s food chain and was also able to propose a redesign that still retained some of the consolidated processes and yet was innovative for the better; the methodology as used in reading and analysing Frassati’s system created -since the beginning of the project- a creative and inclusive environment.
We plans to further enlarge the audience/user of the software, including not only other services of the Cooperative but also external beneficiaries such as local schools and other collective structures (such as elderly residences, hostels, colleges) of the neighborhood interested in to increase their awareness about healthy and sustainable food.
1\ The graphic suggestions will raise awareness on various topics linked to nutrition, health and environmental impact of personal choices. These graphic products will be placed and distributed (in smaller forms) throughout various Frassati’s business units. For example those units in which the beneficiaries can make their own choices about food. It could be a unit in which people are experiencing living on their own for the first time, or living in a house after a period of time spent as homeless or in prison. These graphics will be placed into Frassati’s shelters and structures (Frassati manages over 60 different business units) and will be talked over with the different guests (they could be young adults, homeless, mental health patients, elders, etc.) by Frassati’s professionals.
2\ The web app could be replicable to organizations that manage, cook and distribute recovered food. The input system, starting from the recipes, is user-friendly, requiring very simple and traceable information in input such as the number of people served and the total amount of food that has been cooked.
In order to deal with the global challenge of climate change the EU is working on new growth policies to reboot the countries' economies using green technology. The main strategies to achieve the set goals include also the change of the industrial and logistics segments toward sustainability and the reduction of CO2 emissions in the entire supply chain. The ultimate goal is the achievement of carbon neutrality by 2050. We decided to work on the redesign of Frassati’s food recovery chain because “food systems” represent one of the most relevant sectors that could get better in a circular economy and works on CO2 lower emissions. According to the Ellen McArthur Foundation Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use are in fact responsible for 24% of global greenhouse-gas emissions; the food production chain is a large segment of this productive process. FAO data show that 14% of food products get wasted before being put on the market: this waste translates into 8% of global CO2 emissions.
Studio SHIFT and Frassati Cooperative are embracing the challenge against climate change on a local scale (the Metropolitan Area of Turin has more than 2 million inhabitants) turning it into a social and economic growth opportunity. We strongly believe that the tertiary sector, for its own nature of social and environmental awareness, should play the main role in the global action toward the green transition. The optimization of Frassati’s recovered food chain gets better the already positive social impact of their work, integrating new environmental impacts. As already described, the recovered food is properly stored, daily cooked, and given for free to the over 100 homeless people that the city of Turin welcomes every day. This important social action will be enriched, thanks to FRASSATI FOOdPRINT software and collected data, to demonstrate its lighter impact on the Planet. Frassati Cooperative uses current data to plan further action going to carbon neutrality.
