Food heroes
1/3 of the produced food ends in the bin.
How can a designer contribute to food waste reduction by using a creative approach?
Food heroes is the result of my Master Thesis at the University of Antwerp.
It is a co-creation that brings together the stakeholders from all over the food chain to tackle food waste.
Design Research
The first step of Food heroes was to collect a large amount of information from interviews, scientific articles, internet... Tools like system-mapping were used to keep an overview and visualize links.
Achieved Skills
Analyzing tools and information
Keeping an overview
Making complex information understandable to a layman
Co-creation
The co-creation got designed based on the information collected during the research. Several tests of the co-creation were done and adjustments were made after each. This led to the final co-creation.
The workshop focusses on the problem definition due to the complexity of food waste and the different backgrounds of the participants.
To get insight into the problems inherent to food waste, systems thinking is integrated in the co-creation. In a first phase, 5 steps lead the participants into the world of food waste and into their own ideas about it. 3 problems are defined team wise.
The second part of the workshop is the ideation phase. Participants use 3 specific tools focused on the defined problems. These tools triggers the to use their own expertise and experience to create solutions to reduce food waste.
Result & Achieved Skills
Interaction between the different players to define and solve problems from their own perspective.
This leads to a list of useful solutions.
Achieved skills
Facilitate co-creation and motivate participants
Conceptual thinking
Trial & Error
Strategic & concept design
Presentation & organization
