Smart storage solutions in the fridge of the future to reduce food waste
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan - Medieteknik och interaktionsdesign |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 2 671 954 |
| Project duration | November 2018 - December 2022 |
| Status | Completed |
Important results from the project
The project has focused on developing and testing cheap digital and non-digital technical solutions and methods with the objective of reducing food waste in households. The focus has been on food boxes for storage in the refrigerator as well as personal food inventory systems based on automatic or semi-automatic registration of purchases and leftovers. The goals have essentially been achieved where several prototypes have been implemented, tested and evaluated and reported in reports, master theses and scientific publications.
Expected long term effects
The results show that simple non-digital systems for structured saving, labeling, organizing and inventorying fridges and freezers work well at low cost. Automatic registration of food purchases is technically relatively easy, but would require food chains to provide consumers with access to digitally readable data about their own consumption. This can provide other added value for the consumer such as a better overview of costs, nutrition and greenhouse gas emissions from the food they buy. Unfortunately, without automatic registration, systems quickly become out of sync.
Approach and implementation
We had a design-oriented approach where we iteratively developed prototypes which were then tested, evaluated, further developed and tested again. The pandemic led to problems in conducting user tests as planned. Therefore, there was a greater focus on digital prototypes and less focus on physical artifacts than planned. Legal obstacles regarding how different types of data could be used also meant that desirable technical solutions could sometimes not be developed or tested.