SAVR: Digital Pantry

Track items in a digital pantry to reduce food waste via customized suggested recipes and reminders about expiration dates.

Date: November 9, 2024

Timeline: 24 hours (CSUF’s FullyBeyond Designathon)

Team: 4 designers

My Role: Product Designer

Tools: Figma, Adobe Illustrator

The Problem

Many individuals struggle to track their food inventory, leading to many discarded and spoiled food items

Ever since moving into my first apartment as a college student, I realized how easy it was to lose track of food items. My flatmates and I ended up tossing many expired foods that accumulated in the back of my fridge or pantry whenever we cleaned the kitchen. After more research, I realized how food waste is a significant global issue that poorly impacts our environment.

The Solution

A digital pantry can help individuals keep track their food and prioritize reducing food waste

With food date labels being difficult to keep track of, a simple streamlined system will help people keep track of all their expiration dates in one place.

Enter your food items

manually or through scanning bar codes and/or receipts

1

Tracks your food

Notifies users of upcoming expiration dates

Filters and customization to prioritize your needs

2

Offers recipes

Suggestions prioritize recipes that use up near-expiring foods

3

Secondary Research

Food waste is a huge problem for the environment

Globally, the United Nations estimates that approximately one-third of all food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted.*

Food loss and waste generates 8-10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.*

*according to epa.gov

Competitive Analysis

Other Apps Lacked A Specific Focus on Food Waste

None of our competitors focused on food waste and emphasized using up near-expiring foods.
Many of our competitors were too broad in scope. Focusing on fitness, food waste, health logging, etc.
We wanted to hone in on preventing food waste through many of our features to streamline our goal

Primary Research

Users Prefer Simple and Straightforward Designs

My team and I sent out a Google Form both to our friends, family and to online discussion boards to understand people’s needs when it comes to what information they find important and how they would like this information to be presented to them. We got 30 responders from all ages, but most were college students

Main Insights

72% of responders preferred just having less or more basic details about their sustainability statistics, as opposed to more detailed descriptions of their impact.

82% of responders found themselves sometimes to always forgetting what food they had in their kitchen

only 20% of responders reported “sometimes” or “always” planning their meals in advanced

When asking responders how they felt about other food tracking apps, they mentioned:

Solutions

we only included simple stats of “amount of ingredients rescued” and “amount of pounds of CO2 prevented” to motivate users

we added a notification feature to remind users of expiration dates coming up

we scrapped the idea of adding in a meal planner feature in our app

add a scan feature to scan grocery lists and automatically log food items

Low-Fi Wireframes

Laying The Foundations

PANTRY TAB

pantry filters

pantry items

item details

RECIPES TAB

recipe filters

suggested recipes

recipe details

PROFILE TAB

profile + stats

grocery lists

receipts

Design Revisions

Improved ease on eyes from draft

Changed icons from rows of 3 to rows of 2
Increased font size
accounted for notch in each frame
added curved corners on icons

Major Design Changes

Integrated Onboarding System

Added login page
Helps users set up their pantry
Offers notification setting

Implemented subtile color branding

Green accents help drive the theme of the app
red, orange, and green dots next to items help give the user a visual-cue about the expiration date of their food

Accomplishments

Design System

Branding Choices

Color: Green is Nature and Tranquility

We selected green as the primary color for our app to evoke a sense of nature and tranquility. This choice aims to inspire users, fostering an optimistic outlook on the positive transformations they can achieve through their food choices.

Font: Simplicity Motif

The font selection for the app title aligns with our commitment to simplicity. We opted for the sans serif font Roboto, which embodies a straightforward design. For the body font, we chose Inter, ensuring clear and effective communication of information throughout the app.

Logo: Tying Nature and Health

We selected a broccoli for our logo to symbolize health, for both our users and the environment. The broccoli closely resembles a tree, serving as a reminder of the impact food choices have on nature. To represent the lifecycle of food, we implemented a gradient that transitions from a vibrant green to a more subdued brownish-green. This gradient underscores the natural processes of decay and emphasizes the importance of consuming food in a timely manner, highlighted by the bite marks on the vibrant green side of our icon.

Brand Name: Simple and Memorable

After extensive discussions regarding potential names for our app, we settled on “SAVR.” This choice effectively captures the essence of both “saver” and “savor,” reflecting our commitment to sustainability in food choices. The dual meaning reinforces our mission to connect ecological responsibility with culinary enjoyment.

High-fi Wireframes

I’m extremely proud of how much I learned in a short amount of time in addition to pumping out a pretty fleshed out project with unique features, especially because most of the people on my team were beginners doing their first design-a-thon. My team and I were shocked to be awarded first place and we couldn’t have been more proud of ourselves.

Reflection

Journey in Review

There was a lot of learning but also a lot of room for improvement. If I were to do this project again, I would have loved to have more personalized interviews with users to get a better scope of what exactly people wanted. If we had more time, we would have liked to add features that make the service more tailored to local areas, and connect it with mobile apps like Instacart and DoorDash for things like shopping and delivery.