With more than half of all food waste taking place at home, a transition in our consumer behaviour is needed if we want a future with less waste. While supermarkets and food producers have strong incentives and have the tools to reduce waste on their side, consumers seem to be less concerned about wasting food. However, they are also caught in a complex web of conflicting goals and desires that stand in the way of behaviour change. Food waste is a result of avoiding time and effort, being unaware of its consequences, and experiencing a moral obligation to be a 'good provider'. This desire to provide our partners, families or guests with good and enough food suppresses our moral intentions to reduce waste. Changing behaviour requires confidence in the ability to do so. For family providers, this means feeling confident in being a good provider, and in their ability to minimise overprovisioning. To bridge this vision and the design phase, an interaction vision was developed, stating that interacting with the design should feel like a safety net, discovering new things, and learning by doing. This translates into a design that is reliable, spontaneous, and intuitive. Building on the findings from literature, interviews, and other exploration methods, several design iterations were made based on the following principles: to facilitate creative meal planning and the use of leftovers, to elicit our aversion to wasting money, to provide space to express identity, and finally to align being a good provider with buying enough. The final design is a service in the online grocery store that enables family providers to put meals on the table that deliver the right amount of food without compromising their desire to provide well. It involves creating personalised meal plans tailored to the preferences of the family members, as well as suggestions for substituting larger products for smaller ones. The qualitative test suggests that the intervention can successfully help providers to buy less and achieve behaviour change in the long term, mainly by reconsidering the items in their shopping basket. Through this design, this project explored a sub-solution to the systemic problem of food waste, specifically aimed at online grocery shoppers and their good provider identities.

We live in a world where our plates are filled with convenience and our choices are influenced by an environment full of temptation. The current food system places immense pressure on planetary boundaries and affects people’s health.

A large portion of the Dutch population does not stick to healthy diet guidelines, including the citizens of Rotterdam. This city has the highest national rates of overweight and obesity among adults and children. In recent years, major changes have occurred in the city’s food landscape. The number of fresh food providers has decreased by 38 percent, while the number of fast-food locations has increased by 46 percent, especially noticeable in low socioeconomic status (SES) neighbourhoods (Mölenberg, 2021). This, coupled with rising food prices and limited financial resources, leads to less healthy lifestyles and increased health risks among citizens of low SES neighbourhoods.

The municipality of Rotterdam has the responsibility to secure the health of the city and its citizens. Among initiatives undertaken, the municipality takes part in the City Deal ‘Healthy and sustainable food environment’, to improve the food landscape in collaboration with other municipalities. Within this framework, and in partnership with the municipality of Rotterdam, this project has been initiated with the research question:

“How can the municipality of Rotterdam stimulate VMBO students toward adopting a healthier and more sustainable diet?”

Literature and field research findings reveal that VMBO students’ dietary choices are influenced by individual factors, their social environment, and the physical environment. VMBO students are in the midst of their development, in which their friend group and social status are important. Consequently, a design statement addressing these aspects has been created using the Social Implication Design (SID) method (Tromp & Hekkert, 2014):

“To ensure VMBO students will make healthy dietary choices, I want them to feel cool among their friends by making healthy choices tempting.”

The final concept, developed in co-creation with the target group and in line with the design statement, includes two design interventions to promote healthier dietary choices among VMBO students. The first intervention is the ‘Eat to your Beat’ food festival at school. Through a variety of festive activities, VMBO students gain knowledge and skills related to healthy eating. The first intervention aims to actively engage students to experience and discover that healthy food can be tasty and fun. The second intervention, ‘Eat smart, Play hard’, uses street art to draw the attention of VMBO students to healthy food choices. The art is linked to an online challenge complemented by a social media campaign. This intervention aims to seductively showcase healthy foods and engage with the target group in their online world.

Lastly, a roadmap presents the required steps for the municipality of Rotterdam to implement the design interventions. The first horizon of the roadmap focuses on laying the foundation, the second one is on expanding the concept, and the last horizon is on optimising the performance.

The concept aims to activate the municipality and improve the health of VMBO students in Rotterdam South by making healthy food cool!

► Introduction & Client | Over the last decade, there has been a notable increase of interest in discussions surrounding animal welfare, driven by a deeper understanding of the mental states of animals. This growing awareness has triggered a global push to improve laws and regulations in animal welfare, prompting zoos worldwide to increase their efforts in enhancing the quality of life for their captive animals.

Environmental enrichment has emerged as a crucial tool in increasing animal welfare, supported by studies showcasing its positive impact on reducing aggression and abnormal behaviour in captive animals. ARTIS Zoo actively applies environmental enrichment into its practices and collaborates with the University of Amsterdam to delve deeper into the behaviour and needs of their animals. Scientific research at ARTIS Zoo includes an ongoing exploration into whether primates can recognize time intervals.

► Project Scope | In an effort to further enhance the lives of their animals, ARTIS Zoo has joined forces with the faculty of Industrial Design Engineering of TU Delft to design a versatile device serving as both an enrichment tool and a research device. The project focusses on designing a feeding solution that mimics the natural foraging behaviour of the yellow cheeked gibbon and black crested macaque, taking into account both physical behaviour as well as cognitive abilities.

► Literature research | Literature research has delved deeper into animal welfare, environmental enrichment, and primate behaviour, resulting into important insights. Primates can forage efficiently because of their physical advantages over other animals while also using the WWW-memory (What, where and when). Primates use synchrony, temperature, solar cues and sensory cues to locate ripe fruit. Yellow cheeked gibbons forage in the high trees for fruit, while black crested macaques forage mostly on the ground between bushes and grass.

A vision has been shaped: The product should give the primates more autonomy over their feeding process while triggering the cognitive memory, decision making and problem solving abilities.

► Requirements | The design considerations for the device were carefully outlined, addressing the distinct needs of stakeholders:

Primate Usage: Concentrated on promoting foraging behaviour to reduce inactive periods.

Zookeeper Usage: Prioritizing a user-friendly design to maximize usability.

Researcher Usage: Enabling dual-purpose functionality for both enrichment and research, with remote control capabilities.

Safety Considerations: Ensuring material, assembly, and food safety through detailed specifications.

► Design | The final design (Figure 1.1) takes the form of a fruit, which needs to be peeled by primates to reveal food inside. The device closes automatically and can be locked and unlocked remotely. Iterative design improvements enhance user usability, material sturdiness, and food safety.

► User testing | User testing with gibbons at ARTIS Zoo showcases significant interest and interaction, supported by observational data indicating heightened engagement between gibbons, increased foraging activities, social behaviour and extended active periods in the presence of the device.

Floods, long periods of drought, wildfires, and natural disasters are becoming more frequent, in more extreme proportions. Our current food system is a major contributor to this. In particular, the livestock industry. This is due to the amount of land and water that the livestock sector uses, and the emission of greenhouse gasses. In order to work towards a livable planet for future generations, this project addresses how we can reduce the impact of our food system. One of the most promising ways to reduce the impact of our food system is to switch to a more vegetarian or plant-based diet.

This project focuses on the professional athletes who train at the Olympic training center Papendal and eat in the restaurant at Papendal. This is a unique situation where Papendal controls what the athletes eat. Although the plant-based market is growing enormously and more people are interested in reducing their meat consumption, hardly any vegetarian meals are sold in the restaurant. The manager of the sports restaurant at Papendal has no insight into what keeps athletes from choosing the vegetarian evening meal and what can be done to run a vegetarian menu in the future successfully.

A survey with athletes at Papendal was conducted to identify the barriers and attitudes of athletes towards vegetarian food. This research showed that most athletes are open to reducing their meat consumption. However, the main reasons that prevented them from doing so were that they had not thought about it, did not know what they should eat to get all their protein, and did not like the taste.

In this project, a strategy was designed to help Papendal work towards the vision of a successful vegetarian menu in the sports restaurant, where the goal is that half of all meals sold will be vegetarian in six years.

Several models were used to design this strategy, including behavioral change models and a model for achieving organizational change. The motivation technique called nudging was addressed to motivate athletes to change their behaviour. This motivation technique gradually steers consumers in a particular direction, at all times used for good purposes such as public health or sustainability.

Two roadmaps and two nudges were developed in detail as a final design. The organizational change roadmap helps Papendal work towards an optimal workplace for designing and implementing nudges. Furthermore, the other roadmap shows what type of nudges Papendal can implement over the years. Containing three horizons, each with a different focus of the behaviour change model.

Two nudges are designed in detail. To inspire Papendal what these nudges in the first horizon can look like. The first is a deck of playing cards containing information and visuals about the topic of vegetarian and plant-based food, which allows athletes to get in touch with this topic in an accessible and fun way. Next, a playful cube is designed with similar information on the sides. The cube can be placed on the dinner tables, attracting athletes' attention to increase awareness around this topic.

With the increasing evidence of the effects of our food choices on the planet it is obvious that we have to make changes in order to live sustainably. Our food production systems are responsible for 26% of the total human induced global greenhouse gas emissions, with the meat and dairy industry being responsible for over half of that. Our planet is in dire need for more sustainable food choices and cutting back on our meat consumption is a great start. However, it is proving to be a difficult transition for both the industry and its consumers. The assignment for this project was to develop a new vegetarian restaurant concept for Cirfood, a catering company of Italian origins. This was done on the basis of one of their already existing restaurants which is located in the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Technology in Delft. The focus of this project lies on the design of a new customer journey and a new customer experience, with a customer centric approach, in order to better cater to the needs and desires of the restaurants customers. During the research phase two key problems were found. The first finding was that generally people want to reduce their meat intake. However, they experience barriers towards achieving this. The most important barrier in this is the perceived lack of skills and knowledge on vegetarianism that are needed to make the switch towards a vegetarian diet. The second key problem had to do with the stance of the customers towards the current restaurant: it is one of apathy and indifference. Additionally, the main drivers for the interviewees to come to the restaurant were found to be ‘laziness’ and ‘convenience’. In short, the Ketelhuis customers don't see the added value of the restaurant. The new restaurant concept aims to inspire its customers in order to change its apathetic attitude into one of enthusiasm. Furthermore, the new restaurant concept aims to engage its customers in order to equip them with the knowledge and skills that are needed to adopt a vegetarian diet. To achieve this the new restaurant has been built up of two sections: a ‘Grab & Go’ area for inspiration and a ‘Make & Enjoy’ area for engagement. The new concept took the form of several deliverables: a visual representation of the restaurant with design elements that inspire, engage and educate its customers and a customer journey map that explains the intended new customer journey and customer experience from the customers point of view. This paper concludes with the following insights. With a global shift towards more plant based diets, the needs of Cirfood’s customers are changing. To accommodate for these changes Cirfood needs to create new value by taking on the vegetarian expert role, through which it can empower its customers. It needs to change its restaurants customer experience and customer journey. Not to one that is as smooth as possible, but to one that is challenging its customers to think critically about their food consumption.

We are used to having access to a wide range of products every day of the year. Technology and import enable this offer, as fresh products were initially seasonal bound. The topic of seasonality is often researched and discussed in the light of sustainability and health. The focus is either on how to reduce food miles or why a connection with nature is beneficial for our wellbeing. However, there is an intuitive side to seasonality that is often forgotten. The overall goal of this project is to make seasonality a positive experience. Instead of focusing on restrictions (limited offer per season), the focus is on what is available. The approach for this project is social practice theory. It prescribes to not target one single form of behaviour, but analyse the whole system around it. This way, you can create links and build a system between factors that is supportive. By changing the system around a person, the behaviour changes automatically as a result. The focus is thus not on nudging or creating awareness in one specific type of situation. Qualitative user research is performed, following the contextmapping method. This enables participants to give input by reflecting on what they think, want and need. By using a sensitizing package, a reflective state is triggered in the participant. From the contextmapping research, four design directions were derived. Focusing on the circularity and continuity of the seasons seemed most promising. The design goal is formulated as wanting to enthuse a group of friends to organise a festive get-together over food to celebrate the fresh products of a season, based on traditional seasonal celebrations. The resulting design is a concept called Gaia. It is targeted at a group of friends. They can organise a seasonal celebration together, according to a tradition that has aged or has merged with Christian celebrations. The main idea is that everyone brings something to the table. This can be food, drinks, an activity or decoration. The user can indicate which task they’d like to perform on the website. The concept consists of an inspirational package that the users receive at home with specific inspiration and guidelines for their tasks. The box is received two months in advance, which gives you time to prepare different elements (e.g planting seeds to pick for making flower decorations or infusing liquor to make limoncello). The focus is on seasonal, local and fresh products. Gaia gives a group of friends a reason to celebrate the season, without unnecessary obligations. You can put as much effort in as you like. The focus is on celebrating the seasonal products and going with what is available. It is an opportunity to create your own rituals and traditions with friends. User evaluation showed that the tone of voice appealed to the target group and that the participants were eager to put effort into their tasks as they got enthusiastic by the box. They tried to make a lot of things from scratch with fresh ingredients. The amount of knowledge about the products they’ve used also increased. For future development, the most important task is to design the website to enable a complete test with the whole scenario. Social media channels to promote it can also be tested this way.

Today more deaths are linked to obesity and weight gain than famine and malnutrition, especially with children a concerning increase in global childhood obesity has developed. Currently, many programs have been implemented in the Netherlands to address childhood obesity, however, few go beyond awareness and involve a physical experience. To address this gap this project researched and designed a product experience to support families to develop a healthier relationship with food. The primary aim of the research was to gain a better understanding of how food, play, and parent-child interactions influence eating habits and behaviours in families, especially with regard to toddlers and younger children. Through this research a design was created for the year 2025 and tested with families.

In the first phases of this project, research was conducted through a literature review and qualitative studies with domain experts as well as parents with children between the ages of 1 and 4. These research studies focused on gaining a deeper understanding of specific values, beliefs, and parental experiences within a family in order to better understand the conflicts that exist in the home food context. The insights gained through these studies were gathered and categorized based on how they contribute to what family interactions around food moments will look like in the year 2025. For example, one insight is that parents struggle to set clear boundaries; they often sacrifice their own well-being in order to be more engaged in their children’s lives. Most families are child-centred, where the children hold priority over their parent’s time, energy, and attention. When reviewing these categories, the need for flexibility was a surprising yet important concept.

Once a clear formulation of the home food context was established a series of design interventions were developed and tested. Interventions were tested by myself as well as other families in order to identify and establish which designs positively influence our relationship with food. The design interventions were inspired by the themes of rebellious play, mindful eating, and the promotion of playful exploration, guided independence, trusted relationships, and family harmony.

After testing of prototypes, a final concept was developed and tested by families with children. The final concept called Happi Hanily is a family food play experience that facilitates the reflection of family food values, supports mindful eating, and creates an atmosphere that fosters harmony among family members—all of which promote the development of healthy eating behaviour for the family over time. The design has three elements, the digital Food Finder which is an online recipe platform, the Spill Supporters which are customized napkins, and the Wackey Wavey Wheel of food which is the central serving and eating dish.

The final concept was tested with three families using the qualitative methods of observation, questionnaires, and interviews. During testing it was found that the design facilitated a harmonious dinner experience with the qualities of playful exploration, guided independence, and trusted relationships being enhanced. Due to the timeframe of the project it was difficult to measure whether families were able to develop a healthier relationship with food. However, based on parental feedback it appears that children are more engaged while eating with the Happi Hanily and that this product is something they would adopt as a ritual. The design facilitates a more relaxed and stress-free dining experience which is important when introducing new food to children and when helping them to develop a healthier relationship with food.

Throughout history, there have been different attitudes towards eating fruit in the human diet. Currently, fruit is mainly perceived as a snack, that is to be eaten as a separate piece. Various developments in the history of the Netherlands like industrialisation, emancipation and internationalisation, have contributed to this position. With the competition of convenience snacks, a very small percentage of the population eats the recommended amount of 200 grams per day. If seen as integral part of the meal, fruit consumption will become a more conscious and structured behaviour. Among consumers, the idea of eating fruit combined with other ingredients causes some friction. By serving meals with in a familiar place and a logical context, the consumer can familiarize himself or herself with the idea of meals that include fruit in an easily accessible way without any required preparation efforts. Caterers serve meals to a large group of consumers on a daily basis. Consumers trust the expertise of the chef and are more accepting towards meals served by food professionals. Caterers therefore have a large influence and responsibility. There are some concerns among caterers around the creation of new recipes and the right approach towards consumers. To help caterers deal with these concerns, this thesis has created the Fruitdaging challenge. The Nationaal Actieplan Groenten en Fruit will be the project owner for this challenge and act as a neutral party who can reach out to, and connect with different stakeholders. Research into consumer behaviour shows that changes to a lifestyle are triggered when several internal or external factors change simultaneously. By designing the external and triggering the internal factors, it is possible to steer towards these transition points. Eventually, intrinsic motivation must trigger the actual change in behaviour. The most effective way to get people to accept dishes with fruit is by connecting them to the culture. A series of experiments were held to create a sandwich as iconic as the “broodje gezond”. From these experiments, a system for flavour pairing was created as a tool for creating recipes. A toolbox is provided to assist caterers with the interpretation of the Fruitdaging challenge on both recipe development and consumer approach. In the toolbox are a workshop, a case study, a card game and an online platform to support and help caterers to create and serve more dishes with fruit as a main component. Four different packages suggest several activities to approach different types of visitors. The challenge and toolbox are publicly available and self-explanatory. The challenge can be adaptable to fit to the resources and corporate structure of different type of caterers, to allow all caterers to join and create a widespread effect. When meals with fruit are served more frequently, the idea of fruit as an ingredient will start to become ordinary. It is expected that the challenge will cause people to start using more fruit in their meals at home, which leads to a higher intake of fruit.

All human beings eat food, but not always with the same intention. For many people, food can bring a feeling of comfort, at least in the short-term. As a result, some people turn to food in an attempt to heal emotional problems. The term ‘emotional eating’ has been defined as eating in response to emotional cues, often as a coping response to negative emotions like stress, boredom, loneliness, chronic anger, anxiety, frustration, and so on. Emotional eating behavior can affect the overall healthiness of a person in both the short and the long-term. If untreated, it may lead to food addictions and even obesity. The aim of this project is to transform the current mindless and impulsive eating practice into an experience that cultivates awareness regarding emotional responses and eating behavior. The human-centered design approach will lead to come up with design interventions creating attitudinal and behavioral change on emotional eaters. As a result of this self-initiated research & design project, two interventions were designed to tackle emotional eating behavior; Smash & Crack. These are special snack containers which work as mediators between impulsiveness and food by bringing a physical interaction. They aim to enable emotional eaters to express/alleviate current emotional distress before reaching craved food via behavioral expressions. Thanks to interactions, impulsiveness is transformed into mindfulness. As a conclusion, 'a mindful moment of indulging' prevents overeating of comfort foods and eliminates accompanying negative feelings.

Anima is a new product service that aims to help people suffering from B.N during the maintenance stage. This means that once the patient is out from therapy, there are still some chances of having a relapse episode, that is why a solution to keep a balanced and healthy lifestyle is needed. It is an in-home product that the user should use on a daily basis, in order to stay balanced. This product will help the user be more emotionally aware and help her/him regulating and embracing her/his emotions during her/his daily life. Embracing their emotions and their feelings is the main purpose of this product/service.

Successful interfaces have often been the result of powerful metaphors. By likening an unfamiliar context to one we are more familiar and experienced with, it becomes relatable and easier to navigate. With its wealth of sensory stimuli, the kitchen space offers enormous opportunities for the creation of such metaphors. At the same time, the act of cooking is riddled with sensory “black boxes ”: Moments in which little to no information is available to the senses. In the kitchen, those are often caused by literal boxes: Ovens, microwaves, fridges, etc. Whenever these moments occur, the cooking process moves beyond sensory reach. Being deprived of any direct means of probing food throughout the process presents a significant challenge: Clues that would otherwise inform decisions and provide reassurance are no longer intuitively available. The lack of tangible, practical information is a core challenge for the development of future kitchen appliances. This thesis explores multimodality as a tool to resolve the difficulties users are currently experiencing. Multimodal interactions describe interactions that make use of multiple senses at once. By investigating the roles different senses play in human perception, this project builds a repertoire of engaging communication tools. Various techniques are developed to frame information in multisensory ways. By tailoring these techniques to their context of use, they can elicit experiences that are situationally relevant and enjoyable to the user. Using the findings of the multimodal explorations, this thesis developed a concept using haptic, spatial, and visual modalities. The interface of an oven was altered to guide users towards helpful and relevant information. This was done by including a multimodal dial into an oven's display unit. The dial uses its repertoire to expose information on ongoing processes that would typically be out of reach to users . By modulating its stiffness and texture it can, for example, tangibly inform users about the cooking progress. This three-dimensional, dynamic exploration of evolving processes helped users understand their choices and increased their confidence and enjoyment throughout the experience. For a luxury kitchen manufacturer such as Gaggenau developing interfaces that bridge the gap between the sensory, physical world and the digital future of technology is of great importance. This thesis hopefully contributes insights that will help Gaggenau shape the future of the kitchen.

Forestwise wanted a suitable way to serve their Arenga Rainforest Sugar in Dutch cafés. This brown sugar comes from Indonesia and is a tasty, healthy and sustainable alternative to regular sugar. It is wild-harvested from the Arenga palm tree, which grows naturally inside the jungle. The Arenga sugar provides the local farmers with an income from their existing forests and motivates them to halt deforestation and protect biodiversity. This background story should be communicated to end-consumers.

The first analysis phase consists of research about the sugar’s source, the context of use, and the sugar’s characteristics. Applying the Material Driven Design method stimulates to not take the granulated, brown Arenga sugar as given, but play with texture, shape and process to find a more suitable way to serve it.

Synthesizing the insights into a Material Experience Vision and Design Criteria leads to a variety of ideas, categorised into 9 design directions. From those, 3 concepts are worked out. The stencil shaker concept makes use of the dark colour of the sugar and puts a surprise illustration, depicting the rainforest’s biodiversity, on the milk foam of the café guest’s drink. The rainforest globe concept is a decorative, round sugar pot from glass, depicting the eco-system of the Arenga tree and the rainforest. The selected concept of the sugar block grater lets the user transform traditional, hard sugar blocks into flakes.

A more specific vision is defined to develop this concept. The metaphor of a opening flower bud describes the desired user experience. The sugar should be perceived as natural and special. It is furthermore desired to let the café guests explore the background story of the sugar and get actively involved in it, feeling curiosity, pleasant surprise and virtuousness.

The final design proposal is a grater made out of bamboo, which is placed on the café’s tables. It is filled with cylindrical sugar blocks with chocolate-like texture. The café guest can grate sugar flakes by rotating the base of the grater. A mechanism turns and pushes the sugar blocks against a knife with two blades, shaving off a layered spiral of flakes.

The sugar comes out at the top of the grater in the shape of a flower. The user can observe the sugar “growing” inside an illustration of the rainforest, which is engraved in the bamboo around. This lets the user experience how the sugar naturally grows inside the biodiverse rainforest in Indonesia, contrary to being cultivated in monoculture plantations. The background story of the sugar is illustrated with engravings on the outside of the greater, showing how the sugar is wild-harvested and processed. The café guests become part of the process by grating their own sugar flakes to sweeten their drinks. This drives a sustainable system of rainforest and local farmers. The sugar is presented as special and natural, in an attractive and novel way.

The concept is tested with a working prototype and evaluated by users and cafés.

In the Spring of 2019, Museum het Prinsenhof Delft will present the Mojo
Backstage exhibition, celebrating the 50th birthday of Mojo Concerts. In this
exhibition, the visitor will learn about the developments Mojo has brought
to the world of music, and experience what it is like to be at a festival. Over
the years, festival food has become an increasingly important part of this
experience. This thesis describes the process of designing an installation
that lets the exhibition visitor experience the past and present of festival food.

To obtain a thorough understanding of the context of the to be designed
installation, different topics are researched. The company starring the
exhibition is studied, and through talking to the museum’s stakeholders a
better understanding of the exhibition and its intended visitors is gained.
By combining literature with user interview insights, the different aspects
that make up the festival (food) experience are identified, resulting in a
festival food journey. Also, multisensory mindmaps are used as a way to gain
valuable insights about the festival food experience, resulting in an overview
of the various ways visitor’s senses are stimulated throughout each of the
journey’s steps. Finally, a list of developments in festival food is compiled through online research and interviewing festival visitors and food stall employees.

Utilizing various ideation methods, several concept directions are developed.
By evaluating these through talking to the museum stakeholders and the
intended target group, doing imaginary walkthroughs through the eyes of
the different personas and testing them on the proposed interaction qualities
and evaluation points, one concept direction is chosen to further develop.

The design proposal utilizes a large printed festival floor, on which 7 piles
of trash are displayed as a medium to convey the story of the previously
identified developments in festival food. On the festival floor, several objects
are placed to recreate the festival ambience. Also, speakers are placed
throughout the exhibit playing a composed festival soundscape. At the
high-peak tent food stall, the visitor can exchange their Mojo Backstage Coin
(which they received when buying their museum ticket) for a Frietzak Vol
Festival Voedsel: a bag holding several foods that represent today’s festival
food offer, with an informative text printed on its inside.

The concept is then assessed by performing several prototype user tests and
an additional evaluation through the eyes of all personas. Also, feedback is
gained from the stakeholders and the concept is tested against the evaluation
points. Afterwards, several of the gained insights are used for a final iteration
of the exhibit, and recommendations for further development steps are
presented.

Although the proposed concept needs further refinement before it can be
placed in the exhibition, this project proves that several of its components are
able to let the visitor experience the past and present of festival food.

Today’s business environment is highly dynamic, uncertain and unpredictable. Leading corporates that used to be long-time leaders of their industry are being disrupted by new, digitally enabled business models of relatively small start-ups.
Traditionally AH’s competitors are other supermarkets that offer similar value
propositions. In recent years new players have entered the industry offering similar
products in a different way. This makes the competitive landscape more and more
difficult to monitor. AH screens direct competitors on price and quality of products. As industry boundaries are blurring and disruptive forces are arising, large companies need to find new, innovative ways to compete. This leads to the research question of this thesis: Which future steps are recommended for Albert Heijn’s innovation journey in order to cope with a rapidly changing environment?

The development of new concepts is carried out at AH’s headquarters (HQ). Therefore, the employees working at HQ were the focal point of this research. Research methods included qualitative interviews and a literature review. Most importantly, the researcher gained insights into the organization by working with the “Food Rebels”, an internal innovation team, and by introducing various design interventions.

This project started from an initial idea to use augmented reality for a new innovative restaurant menu, with the aim of validating and building this idea as a startup. An exploration of the augmented reality market and the 3D scanning market was done to establish the technical feasibilities needed to realise this idea. Further, a deep understanding of restaurant visitors and restaurant owners was gained through interviews and user testing.
For the project a 3D scanner was developed, that automates the photography of a food item so that it can be processed into a 3D model. In addition to that, a menu app was prototyped, where these 3D models could be viewed in augmented reality.

Food and mood are inseparably connected to each other. What you eat has an influence on how you feel. On the other hand, the mood you are in influences what you (would like to) eat. Why do we choose certain products, and why do these products give us comfort? This was the theme of this graduation project.

Prior research on food and mood shows that eating behaviour and negative mood both affect physical and mental health. These studies often view food-mood relations from a psychological or nutritional perspective. Remarkable in these studies is that the focus is almost always on food in relation to negative moods. The full spectrum of moods is never looked at.

Instead of a psychological approach, this thesis focuses on the interaction between food and mood on different spectra of negative and positive moods. The aim of this project is to clear up the food-mood relationship and to use these findings in design interventions in order to make people improve their mood with food.

From extensive literature research on mood, mood regulations and comfort food the mechanism of how food influences mood and vice versa was mapped. Through this overview became clear that in current research contexts and situations of consumption are underexposed.

Qualitative research was conducted in order to find out more about the context and interactions in this mechanism. Twelve people were interviewed on their food is less unambiguous then expected. People have different food preferences and eating habits when it comes to a certain mood. It was even found that within one mood, an individual could act different from time to time and use food in different ways to regulate their mood. Throughout these interviews it also became clear that insights on mood regulations are hard obtain, because unlike emotions, moods do not have a direct cause. Most of these mood regulation strategies appear to be subconsciously, which makes it hard for participants to dig in their affective memory.

The found variety of strategies in these interviews, were translated further into three food roles per nuanced mood. These food roles represent the interactions within one mood.

Two moods with their respective three food roles were chosen to design for in the next cycle. For each role a context scenario was created that served as the design context for this thesis.

For each scenario an ideation cycle was done. This resulted in a collection of ideas per mood. It turned out quite some of the concepts had a reflective character. So it was decided to create a collection of products, designed for each scenario.

Eventually six designs were made in order to make people reflect on their own eating behaviour within a certain mood. Also these designs were meant to provide an opening to be able to talk about their own experiences and make these more tangible.

Prototypes were made to evaluate the six different designs. In a qualitative study ten people were interviewed in order to find whether these designs would evoke a conversation about their food/eating habits within these moods and make them reflect on their own behaviour.
The designs were proven to function as a toolkit to talk about and reflect upon their mood.

Food waste is the fastest growing issue of our time. Countries in the EU discard an estimated 89 million tons of food every year. Worse, the food waste will increase to about 126 million tons in 2020 if we do not take action (European Union Committee, 2014). Moreover, most countries are burying food waste in the landfills. This manner of disposal produces methane gas because of the high water content of wasted food, and even contaminates soil and water that we are relying on to live (Osteen, C., Gottlieb, J., & Vasavada, U., 2012). As solutions from food-related organizations and the government, many public campaigns and strict regulations have been carried out to decrease food waste at the production and consumption levels for years.This graduation project started from the global interest: the reduction in food waste. Specifically, the project aims at the consumption level. The reason is that twice or three times more food waste is produced at the consumption level than at the other three stages, which are production, processing and distribution (European Court of Auditors, 2016). During this project, the five design phases were executed for six months.To investigate the reasons in-depth, this project researched and analyzed the consumer’s behaviours towards food. For this study, face-to-face interviews and Food Diary surveys were conducted based on the research questions. The user research data was analysed in several directions.Through the user research, it was apparently found that vegetables were discarded in the home every week and the situation should be improved to reduce vegetable waste. The results of the in-depth user research were interpreted in a design statement to create some design ideas. The ideas were estimated by the four criteria which are feasibility, usability, aesthetics and effectiveness, and one out of five ideas was chosen as the final design concept which names Veggie-Table. As the project completion, the concept development and evaluation were conducted. In summarize, a final design proposal was made that the product not only inspires users to cook a meal using vegetables, but also helps them to not neglect any leftover vegetables in the refrigerator. This is due to the fact that the Veggie-Table is an integrated system for vegetable storage and preparation.

This report is the graduation thesis for the Master of Design for Interaction, Faculty of Design Engineering at Delft University of Technology. The report presents a set of guidelines showing the relationships between food textures and conscious and satiating snacking experiences. As a designer, food textures can be considered as tools to shape people’s snacking experiences. Textures of food have impact on both consciousness and satiation: the aforementioned factors play the most significant roles in termination of eating. Thus by unfolding the relationships between the perceived textures and conscious and satiating snacking, more opportunities to control calories intake can be proposed.

A series of qualitative research and literature review were conducted to discover the determinants for conscious and satiating snacking experiences. Objective oral exposure time, Perceived efforts and time, Changes and fills up the mouth, and Surprise are the four determinants relevant for conscious and satiating snacking experiences.

The relationships were discovered with quantitative research methods. To summarize, Gumminess, Hardness and Stickiness contribute to conscious snacking experience; while Dryness is strongly associated with satiation.

The outcome of the project is a set of interactive and digital guidelines for the food designers. The guidelines not only exhibit the relationships between the perceived textures and conscious and satiating snacking, but also provide guides and know-hows for texture manipulation.

This graduation thesis is about finding a meaningful application for the emerging technology of 3D food printing within the cultural context of urban Japan. The method was based on Verganti’s Design driven innovation to (re)define the meaning of the product. The analysis phase deconstructed the product into its physical capabilities and its current meaning. These key qualities were then clustered and examined within the Japanese context. This part of the research was based on desk research, own past experiences and a stay in the context that resulted in interviews with experts and observations. The research concluded that there was not a need in nutrition assistance, but in nurturing the mental health as factors such as high societal pressure, loss in genuine intimacy and a need to escape were evident.

This resulted in the vision of food poetry which seeks to share memories through food by addressing the senses using the ingredients that correspond to that memory. The physical outcome is the concept of a food haiku; a food composition that consists out of three edible snacks, representing the most important elements of that memory, a written haiku and a specially designed case that enhances the experience. In addition, as food printing requires the skills of both ingredient / cooking knowledge and 3D modeling, a complete product service system was then proposed. The service consisted out of three stakeholders; each having their respective roles in the process of creating and receiving a food haiku. Lastly, the concept’s value was evaluated with interviewees from the Japanese context. The conclusion was that the concept was a modernization of various traditional rituals and was deemed as valuable for the new generation.

This master thesis project describes the process of the designing of a model that offers a way to improve the acceptation of insects as ingredients.
The final designs show an answer to the assignment: a product or product service combination, which contributes to increasing (multi contextual) insect consumption by improving the acceptation (by improving the meaning and understanding) of insects as ingredients, in the Netherlands as well as in Thailand and Cambodia.