FUTR za JUTR - a service that helps fight hunger by reducing edible food waste
FUTR za JUTR reforms currently established processes of food donations in Slovenia in order to reduce edible food waste and fight hunger efficiently. A combination of an app and a smart food locker streamlines the communication between the stakeholders, makes pickup points more accessible for users and decreases the volunteers’ workload. By introducing a self-service pickup point model food donations do not depend solely on volunteers and can be expanded to other areas outside the cities.
Local
Slovenia
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It addresses urban-rural linkages
It refers to a physical transformation of the built environment (hard investment)
No
No
As an individual in partnership with other persons
First name: Tjaša Last name: Mužina Gender: Female Age: 27 Please attach a copy of your national ID/residence card:
By ticking this box, I certify that the information regarding my age is factually correct. : Yes Nationality: Slovenia Address (country of permanent residence for individuals or address of the organisation)<br/>Street and number: Selo 81B Town: Črniče Postal code: 5262 Country: Slovenia Direct Tel:+386 40 588 935 E-mail:tjasa.muzina@gmail.com
One of the many challenges that humanity faces every day is the increasing amount of food waste. Annually, 140.804 tonnes of food is wasted in Slovenia, with 39% still being edible. The average Slovenian throws away 160€ worth of food per year, while 8% of the population cannot afford a proper meal at least every other day. Tackling this issue in our local context has been a primary driver of our project. In order to propose a holistic solution we conducted broad research to understand the complex issue we are addressing. Based on our research findings we set our main goal: reduce the amounts of edible food waste by optimizing food donations. To understand how the process of food donations currently works and to uncover options for improvement, we even joined a humanitarian organization and helped them deliver the donated food.
We propose a concept that combines smart food lockers and a mobile app in order to streamline the communication between the stakeholders; make food pickup points more accessible for users; and decrease the volunteers’ workload. We believe that these elements are crucial for the optimization of the food donation process and consequently, reduction of the edible food waste. By introducing a self-service model, food donations do not depend solely on volunteers and can also be expanded to other areas outside cities, therefore decreasing food waste even more.
The proposed process starts with donors (eg. grocery stores) that are responsible for delivering the donated food to an allocated smart food locker. The recipients are then alerted about available food through the app notifications. They can see available food items and locations of filled lockers. Users who can access the food lockers themselves, go to the chosen food locker and unlock it with a code. Then they choose whichever food they desire. If the recipients can’t access the pickup point by themselves due to mobility issues, they can get food delivered by a volunteer.
Food waste
Circular economy
Humanitarianism
Food donations
People in need
After the initial exploratory research of the topic, the main objectives of the project manifested as the following research question: “How might we better utilise edible food waste generated in the second half of the supply chain by systemically optimising food donations?”. This not only unveiled the environmental and economic aspects of food waste itself but also uncovered the social aspects of marginal groups with lower incomes.
The main focus of our project is to decrease the rising amount of food waste, and the four objectives through which we are planning to achieve this goal are: (1) to develop a systemically organised service for food donation in rural areas, especially outside the cities, with a focus on retailers, the hospitality sector and public institutions, (2) to simplify the logistics processes of NGOs and reduce the workload of the volunteers, delivering donated food to recipients, (3) to minimize the carbon footprint of edible food waste caused by its distribution, (4) to create a transparent and equal food donation system.
The proposed concept is a blueprint of a service, that has been tested with the stakeholders involved in the project. It indicates, how complex systemic issues can be tackled, scaled, and even replicated if the incentives of each stakeholder are understood in-depth and efficiently addressed. On the other hand, the project demonstrates the importance of the synergy between genuine human interactions and digital solutions in modern society.
We started this project with the goal of improving the process of food donations to minimize the amount of food waste, however, it soon became clear that another aspect would be equally important: providing the volunteers and food recipients with a quality user experience, without stigma and other unnecessary obstacles. We tried to achieve this by designing a seamless service, while also considering the importance of aesthetics and usability of the food locker and the app interface.
The design of the app provides the user with a friendly, playful and welcoming interface, accompanying the intuitive use. The food locker has a modern look, which doesn’t differ greatly from the modern parcel machines, which reduces the stigma that arises in the currently active system, where food is distributed late, after working hours, in the dark, on less populated public places. The visual appeal and the simplicity of the process could attract new recipients of donated food in the system, as the process now looks simple and familiar. This would add a lot to the efficiency of reducing food waste. The opening of the locker is done in a trustful manner, with the code for unlocking only being available for a short time, but still long enough to successfully finish the process. The ability to see the types of available food beforehand gives the user an additional sense of transparency and truthfulness. Similarly, the process for persons with disabilities is more transparent than before.
Cultural benefits are seen through the potential of expanding the system to rural areas, which would significantly enhance its nationwide efficiency and provide a similar experience to the people in places with less developed infrastructure.
The largest target groups of our concept are the people on social fringes. The sensitive topic of food donation often evokes social stigma, which is why we emphasise the all-around inclusivity of the concept. The most sensitive section of users are the persons with disabilities, who are in need of donated food. They face obstacles of mobility and food transport, as well as accessibility issues, depending on their disadvantage, when interacting with smart food lockers. For this reason, we decided to include in our concept the food delivery service, which is done by volunteers. This kind of service is more personal and provides the recipients with human interaction, something they might lack in everyday life, due to their social status.
Another element of inclusivity regarding mobility and transport is the option for the recipients to pick the location of the food locker themselves. In addition, the food lockers should be set in close proximity to the sources of donated food, to reduce the workload of employees, responsible for the distribution of excess food products. This feature decreases the user’s dependence on the single largest retail shops, which are currently the only ones to have the capacity to cooperate with local NGOs.
One of the blind spots of the existing food donation model is the insufficient involvement of the rural areas. Despite the average income per inhabitant being much lower than in urban areas, they are not included in food donation schemes, the main reason being the lack of personnel. With a food locker system, set in the vicinity of sources of donated food, which reduces the need for human volunteers, the potential for a more efficient food distribution is easily reached. The deliveries, which should still be done in the case of persons with disabilities, could be carried out by local community services, for example, volunteer firefighters. This could strengthen the resilience of individual rural areas to social problems.
Throughout the project, but especially in the research phase, we collaborated with various stakeholders, including volunteers from various humanitarian organizations, whose involvement helped us tremendously. They offered us the possibility to join them and experience the process of food donations ourselves. This allowed us to understand better the field we were researching and get familiar with many obstacles, both volunteers and the food recipients are facing in their everyday lives. With the gathered insights we were able to transform the problems into actionable items, which lead us to the creation of this proposal. Since decreasing the amount of workload for the volunteers was one of the main goals we tried to achieve, we believe that the main impact the implementation of this concept would have for the volunteers would be the reduction of senseless work (eg. excessive amounts of bureaucracy) and the possibility to truly focus on working on things that bring benefits to people needing volunteers' help. While people receiving food donations were not directly involved in the development of this project, we were able to gather many insights into their daily struggles from the information provided by the volunteers. Because of this, we were also able to address the needs of food recipients in our solution. The main benefits that our solution brings to the food recipients are: the improved accessibility of the food pickup points in terms of time and location, the option to choose the foods they prefer, and reduce the stigma associated with food donations.
As food waste is part of a complex systemic issue, we gathered insights from various stakeholders as holistically as possible and focused on uncovering the needs and habits of various people involved. To make sure our research was as thorough as possible we triangulated multiple research methods, such as stakeholder mapping, expert and user interviews, service safari, surveys, etc. On the local level, we cooperated with farmers, distributors, retailers, grocery store employees, restaurant owners, volunteers, and hospital kitchen staff from the central region of Slovenia. On the regional level, we compared the practices of various NGOs and their workflow, and on the national level, we collaborated with the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Food, and the Ministry of Environment and Spatial Planning.
The humanitarian organisations turned out to be one of the most meaningful contacts we established, as they provided us with the opportunity to conduct multiple service safaris by becoming volunteers and experience the food donation practice first-hand. From such an approach, we gained a deep knowledge of the food donation practice, which helped us understand not only the environmental and economic aspects of food donation but also social. The close collaboration allowed us to prove each concept iteration in a fast and thorough manner.
Since all of the team members were students at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design at the time the project was created, the main discipline reflected in our concept is no doubt service design. To compensate for our lack of knowledge in food-related topics we searched for help externally, interviewing and discussing our objectives, goals and ideas with various experts included in the food supply chain, such as food producers, distributors, ministry employees, volunteers at humanitarian organizations, etc. Receiving their guidance and feedback was a crucial component in the whole development process from conducting in-depth research, uncovering relevant problems and finally proposing a quality solution.
While the idea of fighting food waste with food donations is definitely not something new, we believe that our approach is certainly innovative. Current food donation practices in Slovenia rely heavily on volunteer work with volunteers being responsible for picking up donated food from the donors, preparing packages and even delivering it to the recipients. As the majority of the donors are larger supermarkets that close in the evening hours (usually at 9 pm) and the whole process lasts at least a couple of hours, the donations are often delivered to the recipients in the late hours or even the next day. It does not help that the majority of paperwork is also done by hand, both by the donors and the volunteers. Our concept improves this process with the introduction of smart technologies, making the whole experience easier for the volunteers and less stigmatizing for the recipients. The combination of the mobile app and the smart food lockers also (1) streamlines the communication among the donors, volunteers and recipients; (2) makes storing food in the appropriate conditions easier; (3) reduces the amount of workload for volunteers so they can focus on the people that need them most; (4) makes pickup point more accessible to recipients in terms of location and time; (5) can be implemented in urban and rural areas.
While developing our concept we also looked into the future and prepared a roadmap for how our project could be upgraded or replicated. The first option is the extension of eligible recipients. As the project progresses the eligibility could be expanded to other groups such as students or pensioners, who are also often struggling to afford quality nutrient-rich foods. In the final stage, everyone could be involved, but those able to pay would be requested to contribute a small fee to cover the maintenance costs of the infrastructure. If the project’s target audience would be expanded, so should the types of donors, to ensure enough food for everyone and reduce food waste even more. After retailers, farmers and food production companies could be included. In the last stages, restaurants, hospitals and households could also be introduced and start to share their food surplus. Another option for expansion is the location where the project is carried out. If the pilot project in Ljubljana would take off, other Slovenian cities could also be included. However, the international expansion would be the best possible outcome. This way our concept would achieve its full potential in reducing edible food waste and minimizing hunger.
As mentioned previously, the increasing amount of food waste represents both a global and a local challenge. Before solving such large systemic issues globally, it’s best to begin locally. We believe that with small local changes, the food waste issue could soon also be improved globally. However, there are multiple layers to this problem, some of which we are also exploring through our project. Wasting food means wasting multiple resources that were used in the production, it also means increased hunger and malnourishment. All this negatively affects our society, environment and economy. We believe that we were able to successfully include all of these three aspects in our project, making it in line with a number of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, especially goal number 2 - Zero hunger and goal number 12 - Responsible consumption and production.
