A product service system to minimise household food waste

This thesis reports on the research conducted to develop a solution that would enable food providers support minimisation of Household Food Waste (HFW). First, a literature review was undertaken to investigate the reasons for HFW and to explore the existing solutions. This stage helped formulate a key argument of this thesis, namely that HFW is a system problematic that cannot only be attributed to consumers. In fact, it is a symptom of a system that is in need of a better integration of food production and consumption which would ensure that food operations taking place in the household are optimised to reduce HFW.

The second part of this research explored design methods for sustainable Product Service System (PSS) as a potential solution to enable food providers support minimisation of HFW. Building on a number of methodologies for sustainable PSS design, a bespoke method was created and used to design a ‘Smart Connected Food Provision’ PSS. The ‘Smart Connected Food Provision’ PSS design was achieved by conducting creativity workshops where multiple solution ideas were proposed. The solution ideas were then clustered to form six clusters relating to four quadrants that aim to enable individuals, or a whole society to efficiently manage their food related operations, or relieve individuals, or a whole society from these operations. A selection process was then conducted where all clusters and quadrants were assessed using a set of criteria (including sustainability and feasibility criteria) resulting in selecting the quadrant aimed at enabling individuals which was defined as a ‘Smart Connected Food Provision’ PSS concept. Following the selection of the ‘Smart Connected Food Provision’ PSS concept, industry experts were engaged to highlight key factors that should be considered when designing the PSS concept. Using different tools and methods, the ‘Smart Connected Food Provision’ PSS was designed to focus on supporting households during different stages of the food provision process including planning, purchasing, storage, preparation, consumption and post-consumption. For each of these stages, specific Service Actions (SA) were designed to encourage households to adopt behaviours that would prevent generation of HFW. These SA were categorised under three key themes: inventory management, optimised use of food products and improvement of household knowledge.

The third part of this research aimed at assessing the ‘Smart Connected Food Provision’ PSS. The assessment was achieved by engaging industry experts representing primary stakeholders of the PSS and completing a quantitative assessment of a key part of the system using simulated data. The expert judgment evaluation helped highlight the PSS benefits and risks while the quantitative assessment helped demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed solution. The quantitative assessment has not led to a definite answer as to whether the designed solution would reduce HFW due to the limitation of the input variables included in the study; nevertheless, it has proven that such solution would help acquire key data from which food providers could better understand consumer behaviour towards food and therefore support them minimise their HFW. This conclusion was also highlighted by the industry experts as a key benefit of implementing such PSS.

The research concluded that there is potential to reduce HFW through building a PSS where food providers can supply households with both food products and key services that would guide them to perform their food operations (including planning, purchasing, storage, preparation and consumption) in the most efficient manner which would lead to minimisation of HFW.