Ajay Vijayakumaran

Pi You Cannot Eat! : A Persuasive Service to promote sustainability in procurement and consumption of food

What?

“Pi you cannot eat!” is an attempt to enable active consumers to reduce food wastage at home. The service leverages IOT capabilities to interact with the user, a persuasive artefact, the “Pi”, that is essentially a headless “Raspberry Pi” device with a button, interaction with which enables the user to get insights about the food items that are mapped to the device. An ideal location to place the artefact would be the kitchen of the consumer where it would integrate into the consumer’s life as an everyday object.

Why?

It is important to plan food procurement to avoid wastage as the food item could be utilised in a sustainable fashion to feed the population that is deprived of it. This in-turn is aimed to have a ripple effect in the economics of food consumption towards sustainability in various food systems as procurement of food also has a much deeper economic and environmental impact at various stages before it reaches the consumer.

How?

The approach chosen to tackle the problem is by the means of persuasive design. With the help of the service, the human behaviour towards domestic food waste production is influenced by persuading the user to consume the corresponding food item before its expiry so that less food is wasted. The consumer is then desired to optimise their own consumption and procurement pattern to source their needs, more sustainably.

How does the device work?

The device has an LED Ring module and a button. Food items and expiry dates are mapped to it. On pressing the button the user gets notification about the food items that are due to expire. Lights RED,ORANGE and GREEN indicate food expired, expiring in 3 days and not expiring soon, respectively. The device with food items can be configured with a mobile/web application