Four student groups decided to take up the challenge presented by Package-Heroes project and CLIC Innovation in a challenge camp called #10days100challenges. The teams had 10 days to figure out solutions to the challenge of reducing single-use plastic in food delivery. Team Plastic not Fantastic and their Green App solution was selected as the winner. The team now introduces their solution in this blog.
“During the #10days100challenges event, our team Plastic not Fantastic chose the problem of reducing single use plastic in food delivery, presented by Package-Heroes.
We conducted consumer surveys of 56 people. The average age of the respondents was 28 years old, and 50% of them lived in Helsinki. 84% of them had ordered food delivery before. 40% out of 56 responses said they sometimes have food with plastic packaging, 7.27% said always and 3.64% said never. The survey group were students from Metropolia University of Applied Sciences and about 40% of them were aware that plastic may take over 400 years to be decomposed when released in the environment.
Our survey indicates that people are willing to pay up to €2 average for another environmental friendly material instead of plastic for a food order of €15. This number doubles for a €30 food order.
With the insights from customer interviews and some desk research, we came up with multiple solutions to tackle the challenge. We decided to develop the idea of a Green App for food delivery companies. Green App is another version of the companies’ existing app but in which the participants – company, restaurants and end customers – will only use sustainable, alternative food packaging as a replacement for plastic.
The food packaging will be provided by the delivery company to the restaurants, so the company can directly influence what material is being used. It’s a Green movement and branding campaign for the company. The selection of the package material with its cost can be modified according to the numbers in our survey. Food delivery companies will negotiate the deals directly with manufacturers or distributors, and are likely to acquire a good transaction for wholesale price.
An added feature in the Green App is a payment system where users can use credits to purchase in the restaurants participating in the campaign. Also, users can get welcome credits (for example, €2.99) to download and register for the app. Other current features in the existing app can be applied in the Green App.
The challenges of our idea can be that it takes effort to develop a new app, or there can be confusion for users to have 2 apps for the same company, or finding and designing food packages. However, we do believe the benefits of the Green App outweigh the problems, and they can be tackled. And the campaign can be fairly simple to implement within the time span of 1 year or less.
All for the efforts of plastic-free food consumption: Green App for Green planet”.
The blog post is written By Holmes, Kai and Karoliina who are members of team Plastic not Fantastic participating in #10days100challenges program with the participation of three universities of applied sciences (Haaga-Helia, Metropolia and Laurea).