Food Thinking : How can we reduce the food waste in the households?

• Main Author: Björkqvist, Maja
• Format: Others
• Language: English
• Published: Umeå universitet, Designhögskolan vid Umeå universitet
• Subjects: Food waste; Food Thinking; Fridge; Food storage; Examensarbete; Environment; Industrial design; Design; Maja Björkqvist; Bachelor; Umeå Institute of Design; BFA; Thesis Report
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:umu:diva-125367

70% of the fresh water and 40% of the earth surface is used for agriculture purposes. Today we throw away nearly every 3rd grocery bag we buy. By doing this we waste a lot of the worlds resources. Only in Sweden we spoil 1.2 billion tons of food every year. 700 000 tons of this is from the households. The biggest source to the waste is single households and families with children, this became the target group for this project. We have to change our behavior to preserve the earth’s resources. The research showed that the biggest reasons that we throw so much food is that we first of all buy too much food. We don’t have time to eat all the food we buy and it get therefore spoiled. This is a consequence from that we don’t see it as a problem. There is a lack of knowledge in how much we throw away and how to store food correctly. We are bad at planning our meals and grocery shopping and we end up with too much food because of this. This project investigates how we can reduce the food waste. The analyzed problem areas was used as a starting point in the ideation. The project focus is during the storing of the food in the households and how to keep track on the food we have. The storing of the food can be divided in three parts, make food last longer, plan the meals and shopping and keep track on the food we have. The final result is the smart food storage. It is a concept that helps the user to get a good overview of the food and to store it in the optimized way. It enables for planning of grocery shopping and helps you keep track on the food you have.