Campaign
The Consumer Education Campaign for Leftover Food PotluckProject info
Experience Design
Experience Design
Methods
Primary/Secondary Research
Primary/Secondary Research
Tools
Adobe CC
Adobe CC
Timeline
March 2017
March 2017
👇 This is one of the Thesis projects, under Valuing Food.
Overview
Efforts to influence people’s eating-out behavior need to be carefully constructed to reflect our nuanced relationships with food. Everyone has different perceptions and thoughts on his or her leftovers, but not everyone has to throw out food which is still good to eat. We need to think differently on our leftovers.One of the ways to raise awareness and encourage people to change their attitude is a campaign: Leftover Food Potluck. It is a consumer education campaign. Through the campaign, I want to give a message that we can share our leftovers with others instead of throwing out. It took time to change the way how we think about sharing leftovers. However, I believe the campaign could be a start to open people's eye to the new experience.
💬 We are trashing our land to grow food that no one eats.
by Tristram Stuart
Backgroud
Food plays a key role in shaping our identities, and the way we eat also has a colossal impact on our environment. However, most American don’t realize how much food they throw out each year—an average of 1,000 pounds per family of four, resulting in $1,500 lost. Besides, most of us waste more food than we realize. 76% of NRDC’s survey respondents believe they discard less food than the average American. The truth is, 49% of Americans have found an item in their fridge in the past month that they didn’t realize was there. Also, 58% of people felt less guilty about wasting food if it is composted, instead of putting in the landfill. Composting is good, but it shouldn't make people feel fine about throwing away decent food.
📌 How can people experience the essential value of food in their daily lives by shifting behavioral mindsets and throwing less food away?
Development
Source: Food Recovery Hierarchy by the U.S. EPA
The U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) developed the chart called the Food Recovery Hierarchy. The table ranks methods of food waste reduction. The top is the most preferred action, and the bottom is the least preferred one. However, what usually happens is quite the opposite. We do more landfill than source reduction or reuse. My challenge with this chart started from the idea of how could we get closer to achieving this ideal shape? Even though the chart is an exquisite example of preventing food waste, it is a little far from the daily lives of ordinary users. For instance, on the 4th level from the top, it talks about industrial uses. It is not close to what we can regularly do.
Therefore, I created a new version of the chart focused particularly on leftover foods from a restaurant. Some people say leftovers could be one small part of the whole food consumption. However, with my demography, it is a significant portion of the problem they are facing now. The map I developed is called Cut Your Food Waste, Use Your Leftovers. There are seven levels people can adopt in their day-to-day life of consuming restaurant foods. Top 5 are practices that people could make as their habit to avoid waste. The last two groups are habits that people should prevent. Each stage shows how people can minimize waste from ordering food to disposing of food. Different users will be able to adopt different strategies, all of them are better than thoughtless waste.
💬 Food is an important tool to design society and vice versa.
by Dr. Claudia Banz, a curator, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe, Hamburg, Germany
Based on the chart, I started to develop a campaign. The campaign is a potluck about sharing leftovers with others. It targets the middle tier from the table, using the methods of “Remember to finish leftovers” and “Make it tasty again,” which match to the experimental research I did for Leftover Food Potluck. The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness and encourage people to change their attitude towards leftovers. This consumer education campaign is called "Design Culture for Leftovers. From Food Waste to Social Responsibility." Culture is the way people think, act, and interact. Through the campaign, I hope people can think about the issue, work on it, and continuously communicate with the problem and pursue actions.
There are two campaign taglines:
#LEFTOVERSPOTLUCKTHURSDAY
#STOPWASTINGLEFTOVERS
#STOPWASTINGLEFTOVERS
Getting into the habit of using up our leftovers is one of the accessible ways to value leftovers. Here’s a short story of one of the informers shared with me.
💬 One of my young colleagues told me she didn’t use to take leftovers, but she started to because her managers and colleagues took leftovers. She might still throw some leftovers away, but I feel it’s interesting to see that change.
Changing one’s behavior seems very difficult, but if people are equipped with the right information, I believe behavior change is possible.