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PHRIDGE

 

Helping to reduce food waste & promote nutrition with the help of AI & ML.

MOBILE APPLICATION DESIGN

The Problem

Each year, the average household of 4 throws away up to $1800 worth of food (NRDC, 2017). Aside from the financial implications, food waste also has huge impacts on the environment, such as higher emissions of greenhouse gases, as well as the waste of energy, water, land, oil and fuel required for growing, sustaining, and producing the food. As you move closer to the consumer level on the food consumption chain, the impact on the environment is that much greater (Move for Hunger, 2015).

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Forgetfulness is a part of human nature, yet memory is required to effectively recall and use foods before they expire and have to be thrown away. As a result, we worked to find out “how might we create a tool for household use, that would help track food freshness and in turn help reduce domestic food waste?”

RESEARCH

Our team conducted a survey among Gen Z and Millenial university students, collecting data on their food consumption and waste habits. We received a total of 77 responses answering the following series of questions:

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  • How old are you?

  • Do you cook alone or with other people?

  • How many days in a week do you cook?

  • How often do you throw away foods you're unsure of (in terms of freshness)?

  • Do you currently own a smart fridge?

  • (If you do,) how do you track your food purchases?

  • How often do you clean out your fridge?

  • Do you find it hard to recall your current items in your fridge?

  • As a percentage, how much food would you say that your household throws away each week?

  • On a scale of 1-10, how would you say your food management is?

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A. Approximately 50% of the surveyed population have trouble recalling the contents of their fridge.

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B. Most of the surveyed population clean out their fridge relatively infrequently (on a monthly basis).

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C. Most of the surveyed population rarely throw away foods when they're unsure of their freshness.

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D. The majority of the surveyed population do not own a smart fridge (which would be used to track fridge contents).

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E. Most of the surveyed population stated that they threw away 10% of their food on a weekly basis.

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PERSONA

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WIREFRAMES

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VISUAL ELEMENTS

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THE SOLUTION

AI & ML Technology

AI & ML would be used to recognize and track food items that are placed into and taken out of your fridge, indicate levels of freshness and make recommendations on what to cook based on user habits and preference.

Camera & Sensors

This piece of hardware would be mounted to your fridge to communicate information to the Phridge mobile app. Infrared and depth sensors, along with a VGA camera would help to detect and differentiate between different fridge contents.

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Mobile Application

The easy to use mobile application would allow users to view the freshness and approximate nutritional value of fridge contents, have access to recipes based on the contents, and put together meal plans for days to come.

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