Pantry Pal

A concept project for a mobile application that reduces food waste by creating inventory based recipe recommendations for users.

MY ROLE

TEAM

DURATION

Ideation

Research

Wireframing

Prototyping

Me

Elena

Liza

Sam

4 months

Overview

How can we reduce the amount of food waste in homes?

When I first moved to one of the most expensive cities in the U.S. for college and had to start purchasing my own food I was in for the shock of my life when I saw the exorbitant price of groceries. I was even more upset when I later opened my fridge and those
oh-so-expensive fruits and vegetables with their soft brown spots and little white fuzzies were staring right back at me. As upset as I would get, like clockwork every other week I would buy groceries. Later, I would beat myself up for not using enough of what I bought.

Unsurprisingly, this was not an isolated issue. When Elena, Liza, Sam, and I sat down to determine what we wanted to focus on for our project, we realized many of our issues surrounded food and its wastage.

THE PROBLEM

People forget what items they have in their fridges and therefore don’t utilize it, leading to high amounts of food wastage.

Background

To see if this was a widespread problem we researched how food waste is leaving a lasting impact

According to Feeding America and the USDA:

  • Food waste in homes makes up around 39% of all food waste 

  • American families create 42 billion pounds of food waste

  • According to the USDA, 2022 food prices overall increased by 9.9%, faster than any year since 1979. While food-at-home prices increased 11.4%.

Along with the price of food, consumer’s concerns surrounding how much they spend on groceries has continued to rise.

User Interviews

To evaluate users’ habits we interviewed 12 consumers, using three different methods.

We used three different methods because we wanted to gain a deep insight on what drives the types of meals users cook, the way they shop (i.e price vs quality, etc), if they were conscious of any food wastage, and if mitigating that wastage is a priority for them.

ONE-ON-ONE INTERVIEWS

We wanted to understand what users were purchasing, how much they were spending, and what items they habitually end up disposing of and why. 

PARTICIPATORY STUDY

We asked users to go through flyers from popular grocery stores at two vastly different price points - Whole Foods vs Tropical Foods. Participants were asked to select a product from each grocery store section and explain their choices.

OBSERVATIONAL RESEARCH

This was the really fun part! We wanted to see first hand what items participants forgot were in their fridge/didn’t make use of. We rifled through their fridges and asked them to explain their plans for the items, if they knew of items that had gone bad, and if they knew how long it had been in there.

Findings & Analysis

Users weren’t aware of what was in their fridge and often they didn’t have plans for those items.

  • The most wasted food type was fresh produce

  • People felt immense guilt when throwing out forgotten food due to money wasted

  • People are often unaware of what is at the back of their fridge

  • Time and effort wise, people preferred the least amount of preparation when cooking

  • "I feel guilty for throwing it [forgotten food] out because it feels like a waste of money."

  • Q: What's in your fruit drawer? A: "I don't know."

  • "I feel spoiled [when throwing out food]."

DEFINING THE USER

Although we interviewed ages 18 - 50, through research, we realized that Pantry Pal would better solve the needs of college students and young adults. The younger demographic was more concerned about the money they were spending and their cooking habits and it would be significantly more difficult to tailor all meals for a family versus doing so for an individual.

JOURNEY MAPPING

After learning more about our potential users we developed a journey map so we could have a better understanding of which stages of the user journey to automate and to augment.

During this process we saw the most value in automating the meal planning experience and augmenting the grocery shopping experience to reduce the possibility of the user getting to the waste process.

  • If the users are suggested a recipe that contains food in their fridge that will soon go bad then they’ll be more likely to use it.

  • We would also augment the grocery shopping experience by providing a shopping list based on user's recipes.

Designs

To tackle food waste, we concentrated on people’s cooking habits

Before designing, we had to determine what data is needed from users to make a successful predictions and how we could collect the data:

  • Shopping Habits - What do they typically buy? What do they already have?

    • Solution: Connecting grocery accounts or having users scan the product in.

  • Taste Preferences - What does the user like to eat? What do they have

    aversions to?

    • Solution: Have users select what they eat and have them rate any recipes they select.

USER FLOW

After determining what data we would collect from the user, we created a simple user flow that helped us organize the app.

LOW-FIDELITY

We created initial wireframes with a focus on how the layout of the app and how it would look in regards to the core screens.

MID-FIDELITY

After going over the initial wireframes, we realized it was unlikely that many users would want to plan out their meals for the week. We decided to fix this by giving the users breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snack options that they would be able to select at any time instead of creating a solidified schedule for the week.

We went on to create mid-fidelity wireframes with these changes that we could test on users.

Usability Testing

We conducted usability tests to see if the product was desirable and easy to use

We had users go through our Figma prototypes to see how they interacted with it and if there was anything that could be changed to better fit their needs. Although users find the app to be intuitive, they did have a few problems that we needed to address:

  • The onboarding process was too long - Users didn’t want to sign up before seeing how well the app worked. They also didn’t find the preferences selection process interesting.

  • Can I make changes to my preferences? - Users wanted to be able change their presences on their own and at any time.

  • Why was this recommended? - Users wanted to know exactly why a certain recipe was recommended to them.

ONBOARDING & PREFERENCE CHANGES

After getting feedback we made the onboarding process less procedural so that the user could get to the crux of the app then they would be prompted to make an account.

To address users need to be able to change their preferences, we created a taste profile that shows the user what the app has predicted about their tastes preferences and also gives the user the option to alter it themselves.

RECOMMENDATION DATA

To address users wanting to know why certain meals were recommended to them, we showed what percent match that recipe is to the user and we also created a short general blurb explaining why the meal was recommended.

High Fidelity

After finding better ways to display information and tightening up branding, we created the final version!

ONBOARDING

Maya is a busy young adult who’s interested in reducing the amount of food she wastes and saving time when deciding what to cook.

During the first use she selects her dietary restrictions and takes a quick taste test before getting her specially curated recipes.

RECIPE SELECTION & RATING SYSTEM

For dinner, Maya goes on Pantry Pal and selects what she wants to cook. After preparing the meal, the app asks her to rate the dish allowing the Pantry Pal to tailor the recommended recipes to her tastes even better than before.

REDUCING FOOD WASTE

After Maya buys groceries she goes to the app to take a picture of the receipt so that Pantry Pal can track her purchases.

Pantry Pal now keeps track of her inventory, offering her recipes based on her tastes, the food she has in her kitchen, and how soon they’ll expire.

Reflection & Impact

Although only a concept project, this one of my proudest pieces of work because of all that we were able to accomplish. As a team we really had to work together to find way to reduce food waste using a method that wouldn’t be too invasive but instead a repeated asset. This project taught me that it’s ok to go back to the drawing board more than once because it could lead to an unexpected solution and a more beneficial user experience.

In presenting this project we were pleased to hear that most of our classmates would use the app, specifically to help them remove the deciding factor that comes with cooking and grocery shopping.