Reborn Leftover Club

"Have you noticed your fridge is filling up with food that has expired? Interested in stopping food and money waste? Meeting people to create new recipes?"

My role

Sole designer: identifying problems, researching, designing prototypes, and testing

Project

University project

Timeline

28 weeks, 2023

Tools used

Figma, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, After Effects, Google Forms

Introduction

Project overview

The project aims to reduce perishable food waste among university students living alone by fostering brand influence and leveraging social activities. It promotes awareness and encourages students to share excess food. A dedicated website enables students to join or host gatherings, share food, cook together, and build a zero-food-waste community.

Food waste is a significant societal issue

With perishable food being the most wasted type, yet offering substantial potential for waste reduction.

Households account for 61% of the total food waste, with young single-person households contributing notably to this problem.

What factors influence food waste behaviours among university students living alone?

Research

Understanding target audience behaviour

Collected 71 survey responses and conducted 5 semi-structured interviews to gather data on target students. Also, consuming and wasting behaviours, analysing their influencing factors, preferences, and attitudes.

Design problems

Food waste is common, and despite intentions to reduce it, many struggle for various reasons. Data analysis identified four major challenges.

Limited ability of a one-person household to consume food
The attraction of perishable foods to people is dynamic over time
Absence of purchasing and consumption plan
Insufficient knowledge of storing perishable food

How can design interventions stimulate awareness and reduce wasteful behaviour among university students living alone?

By understanding the target audience,
identify opportunities to generate intervention insights

University students living alone have limited capacity to consume food. Due to personal reasons and diminishing appeal of perishable foods, they often fail to consume the food they have purchased, which leads to the food going off.

Three insights can be designed to
reduce wasteful behaviour among the target audience

Due to limited time, the food-sharing insight was chosen to continue developing the design concept.

The reasons are as follows:

Collaboration and Community: Following highly motivated individuals fosters self-reflection and improvement. Collaboration helps achieve goals individuals cannot.
Feasibility: High willingness to share food encourages participation.
Promotion and Efficiency: Effective community outreach and quick problem-solving.
Partnerships: Potential for corporate partnerships.

Design solutions

Offer opportunities and knowledge for the target audience to consume food, reinforce their intention to reduce waste, and develop habits to minimise perishable food waste.

Cultivating creative cooking skills
Fostering sharing and connection
Build a zero waste community

Design concept

Campaign Concept for Reducing Food Waste

The design concept develops a campaign, branding the activity to convey its goal of reducing food waste through social interaction and collaboration among university students living alone.

Analysing the existing campaigns reveals opportunities for developing a new brand identity and campaign

Food for Soul

The "Refettorio" project converts surplus food into free meals for vulnerable communities, opening 12 restaurants worldwide through partnerships with charities and businesses.

Love Food, Hate Waste

Raise food waste awareness with recipes, storage tips, and shopping advice. Partner with supermarkets for better packaging advice and promote on social media.

Food Recovery Network

Collect and donate excess campus food to charities across the US, engage alums and local organisations, and contribute to the Food Donation Improvement Act.

Too good to go

Partner with restaurants to sell excess food as surprise boxes at low prices, boosting restaurant partnerships and saving 79 million meals in 2022.

University students have vulnerabilities and emotional needs. Residing in concentrated areas such as student accommodation, they struggle with consuming food alone and desire social interaction due to solitary living. Thus, the campaign is strategically focused on addressing these issues.

The new brand

About brand

The brand aims to build trust among audiences for sharing perishable food. It seeks to create an enjoyable, healthy, sustainable, and eco-friendly image to encourage participation in the campaign, foster connections, and work together to reduce food waste.

Goal

Provide a platform for the audience to share perishable food that cannot be consumed, reduce the waste of food and money, communicate with friends who share the same vision, and gain self-accomplishment.

Context of use

When audiences want to share perishable food nearing its expiry date to reduce waste.
When audiences want to connect with like-minded individuals and join a community focused on food sharing and sustainability.

Key features

Join and Host Activities

Exchange Recipes and Insights

Calculate Contributions

Set Personal Preferences

Design development

Engage the target audience in creating process

Invite the target audience to help create the brand identity and design through questionnaires and interviews. Provide them with different design versions and create the final versions based on their preferences.

Reborn Leftover Club Campaign Brand Identity

Through questionnaires, the target audience's preferences for colours, styles, and slogans were gathered. The final brand identity was designed to communicate effectively, conveying sustainability and enjoyment.

Logo

Colour

Font

Aa

Inter Bold

Inter Regular

# F7BB0A

Through questionnaires, the target audience's preferences for colours, styles, and slogans were gathered.

The final brand identity was designed to communicate effectively, conveying sustainability and enjoyment.

# 64B42C

Design Prototype for the Reborn Leftover Club Website

Get Involved

Press "Take Action" to view recommended events and create one. Source suggestions for a great start and set up your own events.

Connect with the Community

Explore user-shared posts to engage with the community and strengthen connections.

Track Your Impact

Monitor your contributions and adjust your preferences for future events.

Flow chart

Feedback

"I'm interested in environmental problems, So I'm always interested in this type of activitiy."

Japanese

“Sometimes people don't always have family around. I really like the idea of communal cooking, making friends through food.”

Jamaican

"It felt a bit risky to attend because I've never done it before."

Indian

“I want to be notified of things that are going on in my local area......I don't really care if it's on a national scale.”

British

"Hoping to add daily featured sharing posts on the community page."

Chinese

Project takeaway

Engaging Target Audiences to Inspire Design

This project places significant emphasis on user research, which is central throughout the design development process. As one individual cannot represent the entire group, engaging the target audience fosters empathy to truly understand their pain points and ensures the design effectively communicates.

Limitation: Due to personal and time constraints, simulating a real-world test environment, including exposure to various touchpoints from promotion to event participation, was challenging.

Further development: Research indicates that the campaign has potential. For further development, start with a pilot event, identify issues, and adjust the campaign based on feedback.