Brainstorming Area of Interest
Food Wastage at PG’s
Women Safety in Yelahanka
Sign up system for Courses
Laundry Services by PG
Finalising Area of Interest:
Food Wastage at PG’s
There are a lot of times when food is either overprepared or underprepared for the students, leading to wastage from a PG Organization.
There are a lot of times when food is thrown away from the student’s plates, which causes tremendous wastage.
Let’s move to the Discover Phase:
Finding the Nature of the problem.
In order to understand the nature of the problem, we shall interview the stakeholders of the system.
This calls for an ecosystem Map!
Which people affect the decision of a student to skip/throw/eat the meal of the PG?
INDIRECT
DIRECT
Why?
If you don’t waste any food, what’s the secret?
What would reduce the food wastage from your plates?
Research: Students
I took the role of a foodie waste investigator with samosa in the hand.
I started with some jokes to put my friends at ease before getting to the serious questions about why they were wasting the food served by the PG.
Some were guilty of throwing away perfectly good food, while others were true heroes, devouring everything on their plate like it was their last meal.
Does it make you feel guilty when you have to throw the leftover food in the dustbin?
Do you tend to waste/throw away the food prepared in the PG?
How often do you order from outside?
What do you not like about the food?
How do you think it can it be improved?
Which PG do you think has the better food?
Research: Chef
As I walked into the PG Kitchen with a book and pen in my hand, I felt like a true researcher ready to get their perspective. The chefs looked at me with confusion,
but then, they took me to the Chief Executive Chef, who was like a culinary superhero. More on him in the persona, but the guy was passionate!
He started talking with such enthusiasm that my pen and book were feeling useless. I was making mental notes, so as not to break the flow.
Anyway, I left the kitchen feeling like I just had a crash course in food management and my brain was overloaded with information. It was fun!
Could you tell me about yourself.
What is your role here as the Executive Chef?
How often are vegetables and fruits ordered?
How do you cater to a student community with diverse food choices from around the country?
Sometimes there is overconsumption and underconsumption. How do you predict this to avoid wastage?
What time does the kitchen open and close for the day?
There are complaints from students that the menu is monotonous, and food is oily. Is that true?
Why are dishes like Karela, Loki, etc made for students when not a large population will eat the same? Is it the budget?
Research: PG Owner
I did not think I would find the owner as she was not visiting regularly to the PG due to Covid Scare. It was my luck, that while walking down the road, I saw her outside the Mess and walked up to her, and we had a casual chat about the PG before I asked her about a chotu interview.
The owner was tired of interviews but she agreed for a quick interview, thanks to my convincing skills. More than being extremely transparent, she was making sure the image of her PG does not come down, which seems fair.
What do you do with the wasted food from the kitchen?
What happens to the wasted food from the students’ plates?
Sometimes there is overconsumption and underconsumption. How do you predict this to avoid wastage?
Where do the vegetables and fruits come from?
Why do you not prefer Reliance or Dmart for your ingredients?
How do you handle students with specific allergies/requirements such as Jains/Vegans.
Why are dishes like Karela, Jackfruit, etc made for students when not a large population will eat the same? Is it the budget?
INSIGHTS - STUDENTS
WASTERS / MEAL SKIPPERS
Monotonous Menu
Menu not planned right - leading to Acidity
Experiment with food -
Eg: Mixing chola with Dal
If sabzi is not consumed by everyone, atleast good Dal to be decided.
Eg: Very few people eat Jackfruit Sabzi, Karela Sabzi
Complaints with Menu
Take only little in plate instead of taking everything at once
However bad food is, childhood habit to finish everything in their plate
Their Secret to avoid wastage
NO WASTERS
Less Salt
Oily Food
Too Many Bones in Chicken
Uncooked Rice Sometimes
Big Eyes Small Stomach:
When hungry, too much taken in plate by mistake - not able to finish.
Realized after taking food that taste isn’t what was assumed.
Pakoda,Sabudana,Dhokla,Appam and other regional special dishes seem good as dishes, but taste not upto the level they eat at home.
Complaints with Preparation
Problems with Themselves
Menu decided 1-3 months in advance by the Executive Chef.
Paneer/Chicken made on Wednesdays and Sundays fixed.
Why sabzis like
Karela/Jackfruit in menu?
Order for groceries placed to the local APMC and vendors.
Fresh Groceries arrive once in 3 days in bulk.
Fresh Fruits arrive every evening around 6pm for next morning’s breakfast
Are the vegetables checked?
Chef: Yes. I check and make sure the unloading is done properly.
Jains/Allergies?
Owner: We do not serve Jain/Vegan food and do not cater to them.
For Allergies: They can always ask whoever is serving them if their allergic food is present in that and decline to eat it.
PG Owner: Karela and Jackfruit are more expensive than other vegetables. However, health is also important not just taste.
MENU DECISION
Why no Dmart/ Reliance?
PG Owner: The rates were not matching, and she preferred to give business to local vendors.
ORDER PLACEMENT
ARRIVAL
Service is not included in this. It is studied in detail and presented in Consumer Journey Map.
How is food
consumption predicted?
ARE THE CHEFS SPECIALIZED IN ANY PARTICULAR CUISINE?
STUDENTS COMPLAIN OF TOO MUCH OIL IN GRAVIES. WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?
In case of Shortage?
In case of Excess?
Which brand’s ingredients?
Food quantity is gauged according to days and dishes. The 15 years of experience also gives them intuition.
In case food is finished faster and more people expected to come or waiting in line, immediately start making new again.
Food stored in freezer.
Upto 3 days at max.
(Freezes bacteria)
Eaten by Staff directly, or rehashed in food for the staff.
All Spices, Garam Masalas, Pickles and other such are made in-house for better aroma and health benefits to the stomach.
Dishes:
Dishes like Karela is made in less quantity.
Paneer/Chicken in more qty.
Days:
Less food on Saturday nights & Sunday Morning & Afternoon.
More on Wednesdays & Sunday Nights when Chicken/Paneer is made.
Chefs are all rounders they make North Indian, South Indian, Chinese, Arabic, Continental, Italian and everything else. Hence, menu is also very diverse.
However, focus is on North Indian.
Food isn’t actually oily as such, it just means food is cooked properly because oil seeps out of the gravy if it is cooked good.
Addressing student’s concerns
Cooking & Storage
All Answers by the Chef
Owner:
There is close to no wastage in the Kitchen. However, once food is SERVED & wasted FROM the STUDENT'S plate, can’t do anything.
CONSUMER (STUDENT’S) AS IS JOURNEY MAP
IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
Tasks
Checks menu on WhatsApp group and decides to go to the mess.
Sees others’ plate in the mess to evaluate the food visually.
Area to improve
Earlier Access to Menu with option to choose not to eat or to eat.
Area to improve
Provide testers
Encourage testing first rather than filling whole plate.
Ensure students mix the food properly before they take it/judge it.
Area to improve
Keep extra salt and other masalas so people can add salt if they find it bland either near the food buffet or on the tables.
Area to improve
Encourage sharing the food between friends
Ensure everybody eats in mannerly order so sharing food is possible.
Area to improve
Implement dustbin throwing compulsory to imbibe the guilt.
Have Separate Dustbins for Food/Dry Waste
Tasks
Waits for the line to move forward
Takes Plate
Tasks
Looks at sabzi first, if looks visually good, will fill the whole compartment
If looks okayish, takes little sabzi and 1 roti, or shifts to Dal Rice.
Tasks
Eats the food and realises it is not matching the visual representation or pre-concieved taste.
Finds it too oily, too salty or less salt, bland
Tasks
Realises they are too full already and can’t finish the plate.
Realises the food is not tasting good for them and can’t eat anymore
Tasks
Throws food in the dustbin. Feels guilty of wasting food.
Age: Approx 55-60
Location: Bangalore
Straight Forward
Observant, Attentive
Adamant
Makes sure everything is organised to detail and on track
Personality:
Owner/Manager
Motivations:
To provide the best service to the students
To take care of the staff
To ensure people don’t waste food
Provide fresh healthy food with nutrition to students even if is expensive rather than junk food
Pains and Needs:
Can’t check the food quality everyday
Receiving complaints on quality of food
A lot of food wastage by students in the dustbin
Chef/Kitchen Staff
Age: Approx 30-50
Location: Bangalore
Personality:
Motivations:
Pains and Needs:
Highly enthusiastic about cooking and his work, and holds pride in his experience.
Cannot estimate the correct quantity of food, ends up preparing a lot more
To plan a good menu for students
Make sure most students like the food
Prepare all cuisines of food and not make a monotonous menu
PERSONAS: WHO TO DESIGN FOR?
Student - Atisha
Name: Atisha
Age: 19
Location: Bangalore
Personality:
Motivations:
Pains and Needs:
Avid Observer, Criticiser, Problem Solver
Used to Masaledaar Food from Northern India
Loves to Sketch and Paint
To be tension free about food
To have home like food in college
Have tasty food and healthy food
Finds food taste too bland in PG
Finds regional food like Dhokla and Sabudana extremely different tasting hence inedible.
Finds Menu Repetitive
Finds too many experimental mixes of veggies in food
Ends up ordering from Swiggy/Zomato alot
Student - Samisha
Name: Samisha
Age: 19
Location: Bangalore
Personality:
Motivations:
Pains and Needs:
Social
Used to Rice Items and South Indian Dishes
Doesn’t complain too much
Finds food taste not upto the mark
Usually takes a lot of food in the plate and is not able to finish it
Does not waste food
Ends up eating lesser if food is not that great
Wants decent enough food
Doesn’t want to waste food
Have good quality dals and vegetables
HOW MIGHT WE’s?
How might we increase the trust of students in the PG Food?
How might we use the excess food for a better use rather than the compost?
How might we ensure that students take only what is needed?
How might we ensure PG Food is preferred to eat even though students can order from Swiggy/Zomato?
How might we encourage the students to eat healthy food, which might not taste amazing?
How might we make the food taste better to a diverse crowd with many different preferences?
How might we ensure open and better feedback about food from students?
How might we create a more engaging environment at the building mess while eating food?
How might we ensure reduced wastage of food in the student’s plates?
IDEATION:
SOLUTION:
TO BE SCENARIO:
Tasks
Checks menu on WhatsApp group and decides to go to the mess.
Sees others’ plate in the mess to evaluate the food visually.
Tasks
Waits for the line to move forward
Takes Plate
Tasks
Takes a spoonful of the food from a small bowl kept beside the main container and tastes it.
Based on heavy/light tag, takes little or more serving in the plate.
Sees how healthy the food is, encouraging them to eat regardless of the taste.
Tasks
Enjoys eating the food with the apt quantity and expected taste.
People from Indore make anything better with Sev, and people from Maharashtra add peanut chutney.
Tasks
Reduced Wastage
OPPORTUNITIES:
Doing the research on students helped me think of another user audience - college seniors who live in their own apartments/flats
After the project was finished, I conducted some more research on 4-5 students.
Although most people keep a maid, a lot of people usually get tiffin service delivered, or go and eat in a local tiffin room. The distance should be short.
There’s lesser headache of groceries with a tiffin service.
They prefer to have a subscription per month basis.
It’s hard to hunt for good tiffin service providers, its usually word of mouth or trial and error.
HUGE GAP BUSINESS MODEL
This opened up a huge gap:
Delivery just for Tiffin Service Providers.
However, with the order value so low, is it possible to make money? Considering Zomato doesn’t make any money on orders below 300.
Let me explain:
For meals and tiffin service, people are from the same locality of 3-4km radius.
Secondly, there is no urgency in delivery. It’s pre planned. Food is prepared at a fixed time, delivered at a fixed time.
The goal is to use Machine Learning to craft out a route for delivery partner that enables them to pick up the tiffins all at once from a place and deliver one by one in the same locality.
Zepto delivers items in 7-8 minutes if the shop is in the same locality.
That means, we could target to complete 8-9 deliveries in 1 hour.
If delivery partners are paid 100Rs for an hour - this means we can bring the cost of delivery down to 12-15Rs per order.
PRICES:
Using economics of scale, If 8 consumers are charged 20Rs for delivery per meal, charged 600Rs/month per meal for 30 days -
delivery person makes 3000 per month fixed, and there is a profit of 1800.
Further profit can be made from listing commissions on the app.
The profit can further be increased if we start making and offering tiffin meals, which cost around 30Rs per plate - increasing our profit to
Brief:
We have to find a system or service which requires intervention. Every student seemed to complain about PG Food, however, what do the PG's think? How can we make a service that works for students as well as PGs?
Why? A tl/dr:
After detailed interviews of problems from students as well as chefs and PG, we found that it is not just the PG but also the students at fault. We tried to fix this problem considering the chef is not changed, and even if the chef is changed, the problem persists.
FOOD JOURNEY MAP