Simple design tweaks can sometimes significantly reduce waste in homes or in manufacturing and retail environments.  For instance, creating three separately packed portions of crackers within a box can extend usage for customers and avoid the product going stale.  Similarly, adding product rotation ability (think “lazy susan”) into a refrigerator can reduce the amount of forgotten product hiding in back.  Conducting a quick analysis of your product line(s) can highlight opportunities like these, which add value for your customers and at times reduce costs in your own facilities as well. 

Goal:

To identify opportunities to tweak product design elements in order to optimize food use, and therefore value, by your customers.

 Design:

• Client selects product line(s) for review and supplies product information (actual product samples for food products, brochures and manuals for appliances, etc…)

• Next Course conducts assessment of product(s)

• Next Course delivers analysis assessing strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats related to food waste for each product. Review will highlight specific design opportunities for improved usage. Reviews will focus on customer usage, but may include additional insights related to food service, retail, distribution, or manufacturing.

• Reviews can typically be completed within two weeks, though larger portfolios will require extended timelines.

• To facilitate easy sharing across the company, the final deliverable will include a slide deck summarizing the food waste issue as well as top product review conclusions.