Our current food system causes numerous problems beyond our plates, placing pressure on our planet. The most efficient way to reduce the pressure of our food on the planet is by consuming fewer animal proteins and more plant-based proteins (United Nations, z.d.) This transition known as the protein transition requires widespread behavioural changes among consumers.

Flevo Campus, a knowledge institute focused on urban food issue, is involved in this transition. At the start of 2024, they published a Whitepaper on the potential of beans in this shift. Beans have sparked this thesis and moved the design context into the supermarket. Initially centered on incorporating beans into evening meals, the scope expanded to creating in-store plant-based meal options. This change was prompted by consumer feedback indicating a desire for a diverse range of plant-based proteins in their recipes instead of focussing on beans.

Supermarkets play a significant role in shaping dietary habits, as nearly 75% of food consumed in the Netherlands is purchased from them. This creates an opportunity to influence people’s eating habits. Young adults, who are more open to dietary changes, often shop for their evening meal after a busy day at work and enter supermarkets unprepared. In these situations, their biospheric values are overshadowed by the need for convenience.

The ultimate goal of this project is to design an intervention that causes dietary behaviour change and accelerates the protein transition through the design statement:

“To stimulate young adults to choose plant-based meals, we want them to feel eased and inspired by providing convenient and appealing recipe suggestions that make plant-based choices effortless and enjoyable.”

To develop an effective design intervention, the project began with research into the protein transition, behaviour change theories for young adults and the influence of the supermarket contexts on decision making. Insights from literature and field research were used to create a storyboard and persona, addressing the core dilemma of “What’s for dinner tonight?” when entering the supermarket. This is precisely that moment the protein screen intervenes.

The protein screen is a product service systems with an interactive screen placed just beyond the gates of the supermarket. The visitor is presented with three questions, which they could answer by tapping on the screen. Based on their responses, the visitor receives plant-based recipes recommendations and finds a recipe match. By scanning QR code, the user recieves the grocery list and recipe on their phone. Within one minute, the user can start filling their shopping cart with ingredients for a personalised and tasty plant-based meal. This system boosts plant-based product sales, supporting the supermarket’s sustainability goals and generates valuable consumer data.

The concept was tested with a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) in a supermarket as depicted on the image below, yielding feedback from the target audience and stakeholders. Flevo Campus responded positively and expressed interest in further development. Additional steps in collaboration with other stakeholders need to be taken regarding the (financial) feasibility of the project.

This project contains an in-depth case study that
illustrates how behaviour change theory can be applied in the supermarket context, providing an intervention that channels consumer choices towards plant-based options and offering recommendations for future development.

In China, the takeaway industry has been steadily rising, gradually maturing, and evolving into a large-scale dining market. Urban white-collar consumers constitute the primary user base for food delivery and are the target user group for this project. However, food delivery waste has yet to be adequately addressed. During the theme exploration and research phases, through methods such as interviews and co-creation, it was found that subjectively, there is a weak awareness of reducing food waste, unclear criteria for judging the freshness of leftovers, and a lack of facilities for storage and reheating. However, the most significant objective obstacles include portion sizes exceeding appetite, and the taste not meeting consumer expectations.

This corresponds to an opportunity to bridge the information gap between consumers' expectations and the actual portion sizes and tastes of dishes. Combining with the SICAS consumer behavior model, which aims to increase the conversion rate of consumers' willingness to reduce food delivery waste into actual behavior. The goal of this project is to assist consumers in feeling confident, inspired, and encouraged about how to order takeout that suits their food intake and tastes, thereby reducing food waste. Through brainstorming sessions and prototype testing during the ideation phase, the final design was iterated in both intuitive and conscious directions.

The final design is a new takeout ordering app that primarily integrates an AI assistant - Order Pal, and visual information prompts to help consumers of different personas order takeout with appropriate portion sizes and flavors in various scenarios. Through Order Pal learning users' ordering preferences, recommending suitable portion sizes and flavors, the app assists consumers in quickly and conveniently placing takeout orders while feeling guided and inspired. Additional details in visual information continually prompt and reinforce consumers' understanding of portion sizes and flavors. With long-term reminders and encouragement from Order Pal, consumers gain a better understanding of their food preferences and intake, enabling them to find meals that suit them, reduce food waste, and cultivate a more mindful food consumption.

Mood shapes our behavior and interactions. We regulate our own mood, for example, by seeking support from others, while also attempting to influence the moods of those around us. In service settings, this regulation is crucial, as customer experience and satisfaction largely depend on frontline interactions where mood impacts perceptions of service quality. Service providers who can recognize and regulate their own mood, as well as identify and adapt to client moods, can enhance customer satisfaction while supporting their own well-being. Emotional Intelligence (EI) plays a key role in this process, equipping providers to manage these interactions effectively. Providers can be supported in skillfully managing both their own and clients' moods through designed products, targeted interventions, and training programs. However, while mood’s impact is well-recognized and some training efforts focus on self-regulation, empathy, and communication, research on how service providers manage client moods still requires investigation, and there is a lack of specific training for interpersonal mood regulation in service contexts.
This thesis investigates the role of mood and interpersonal mood regulation (IMR) within one-on-one service encounters, such as those between government employees and citizens or healthcare providers and patients. The study addresses four key questions: (1) understanding the role of mood in service encounters, (2) identifying IMR strategies used by service providers, (3) developing tools to support IMR strategies, and (4) evaluating the effectiveness of these tools.
Through an experience sampling study, the first chapter introduces a “Framework of Mood-Sensitive Interaction” highlighting service providers' ability to manage their own moods and those of clients. The framework’s four components—noticing own mood, regulating own mood, interpreting client's mood, and adjusting communication—provide a foundation for nine interpersonal mood regulation strategies: Understanding, Calming, Encouraging, Sociable, Efficient, Apologetic, Tolerating, Blunt, and Distant. To communicate these strategies, three tools are developed and validated: IMR strategy cards, videos, and character-based animations, each aiming to facilitate interpersonal mood regulation skills for service providers. Findings suggest these tools help service providers become aware of the strategies and help them to talk about them.
This work contributes to positive design and organizational psychology by providing practical tools and insights for training programs aimed at enhancing client-provider interactions and service-provider well-being. It offers foundations for future research and practice in designing for interpersonal mood regulation.@en

Mexico is one of the countries with the highest number of overweight children
and adolescents in the world and, unfortunately, schools are an important cause
of this problem. Despite the efforts of the Mexican Government in creating new
regulations to reduce the availability of high-calorie food products within and
near schools, their implementation has not been successful.

To contribute to the alarming problem of childhood obesity in Mexico, this
project explored the interactions children have with food at the primary
school context. The main motivation was to propose a new perspective on the
approaches that can be explored when thinking of potential solutions to this
important health emergency. To do so, research was conducted in a city located
in the central area of the country, and it was guided by the research question
“What are the determinants of children’s food choices at primary schools in
Querétaro, Mexico?”

A combination of different research methods was used to give answer to
the previous question: an explorative approach through generative research
techniques such as Context-mapping and Co-design, and a theoretical approach
through the Behaviour Change Wheel model. Through this method it was
possible to uncover problems that provide a new perspective on children’s eating
behaviours, such as their partial knowledge of healthy and unhealthy products
and the lack of support in building positive associations with food.

Based on these findings, the goal of this project was to generate a design that
motivates children from the Naciones Unidas and José Morales Lira primary
schools to develop a balanced diet by creating positive associations with healthy
food during their school experience.

As a result, a class activity was designed serving the functions of providing
a comprehensive education around food options, incentivising children to
perform healthier eating practices, providing them with examples of how to
do it, and enabling them to construct their own balanced meals. Additionally, a
restructuring of the communication language was proposed, in hope of shaping
more non restrictive relationships between children and food.
Finally, the activity was tested with a small group of children, and assessed by
primary schools professors to obtain insights into the steps that can be taken to
extend the impact of this intervention, with the goal of promoting and sustaining
healthy behaviours among children.

Consumers encounter many food choices in the supermarket, including ultra-processed food. Observing in the context and reflecting on the daily interactions, these products often present with product identities visually, and the food does not transparently show on the packaging. Consumers can see images of dishes, contextual visuals, labels, product claims, rendering pictures, ingredient depictions, and various product representations in many styles on the packaging of different ultra-processed food. The lack of transparency reduces the intuitive communication of the food’s authentic attributes. More challenges are shown in the context, including consumers’ habitual decision-making, bias brought by labels and product claims, and market trends of relying on visual representations. These are insights revealed from literature research, observations, and context analysis.

In the spectrum of ultra-processed food products, sustainable food is relatively new, with large growth potential compared to other well-established ultra-processed food categories. The mentioned challenges add potential obstacles to sustainable food in effectively communicating its unique food identities and values. Recognizing these challenges, the project focuses on ultra-processed sustainable food, as this category faces less effectiveness in communicating food attributes and values and can improve on establishing a stronger connection with consumers.

To foster the relationship between consumers and ultra-processed sustainable food, the project leverages multisensory packaging design as an opportunity to enhance the experience in a future context. The project developed the idea through multiple design exploration sections combining multisensory design and traditional design methods to implement the vision. During the explorations, the concept development is based on deconstructed food-related messages (e.g., food textures, tastes, associations, and values), transforming them into design elements (e.g., packaging materials, patterns, structures, and shapes) that can be effectively conveyed through sensory stimulations. Interactions are involved along the process to ensure the harmonies, intuitiveness, and other main qualities for the holistic experience. The final results of the multisensory packaging design apply to a meat alternative and a dairy alternative product. The innovation transformations in the packaging design empower consumers to uncover food messages through various sensory modalities. Furthermore, the concept showcases the distinct values of sustainable food. The final concept demonstrates a multisensory packaging experience that utilizes design elements in message delivery in a cohesive, meaningful, and immersive way.

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!

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.

The delivery food has been embedded in our daily lives. With just a few clicks, people can enjoy the food without cooking or going to restaurants. However, In OFD (Online Food Delivery) industry, there lies a mixed problem containing service limitation, business challenge and low salary. Firstly, the customer service is limited to only transferring the food, this simple service can not supply user experience well. Secondly, the delivery industry is in a competitive market, there is little differentiation among platforms. Thirdly, the deliveryman in this system can not earn much.
The solution for this combined problem is a service toolbox for service providers (deliverymen) and the users (consumers). By using the tools, different types of consumers could get different experience pieces, those modules make up for unique user journeys. This innovative solution could also help a food delivery company stand out in the market competition while earning more money for deliverymen.
This project begins with the initial research question: How can delivery (company) provide service that enhances the food& eating experience？ I also chose the company Eleme as the project background. Then I researched users, services and businesses, defined the design goal & requirements. After this, I did design development and evaluation. The research phase includes literature study, interviews and other types of analysis, it gives me background information to understand the context as well as insights to frame the design goal and requirements. These insights gave me clues to make four types of Persona based on the user motivation to eat delivery food. As I want to include all types of users in the OFD system, I framed the design goal as "HMW help Eleme innovate service in different customer experiences to differentiate itself in the market and make money?". With this framed goal and its specification, I ideated different solutions and directions. Among these directions, I found the deliverable as modular tools can best achieve the goal and meet the requirements. After comparison, the concept"Lego my dining" is developed. It is a set of service tools （including digital and physical forms）that serve as modules to enhance the customized user experience of different customer needs. Afterwards, I deepened the design and evaluated it with small tests.

In the Dutch republic of the 17th century, there were a lot of developments. The economy flourished, science made enormous progress and art and culture bloomed. But as many people don’t know, during this time, a food revolution was born that reached far beyond the Dutch dining tables. Healthy, seasonal and sustainable food products are central to this Dutch food culture. De Tuin van Holland (The Garden of Holland) is a program commissioned by the Provincie Zuid-Holland, where projects are carried out that aim to inspire both home cooks and chefs with the rich history of the Dutch food culture.

In collaboration with De Tuin van Holland, this master’s thesis uses the inspiring stories of the Dutch food culture that existed in the 17th century in order to contribute to increasing the appreciation for local and seasonal products in the present day-to-day life. The aim is to enrich the consumer's restaurant experience by telling stories of the history of the Dutch food culture in restaurants.

When looking at the local food industry, three parties are most important: food producers, chefs and consumers (i.e. guests in the restaurants). Participants within these groups are involved in all phases of this project.

Currently, chefs are looking for a way to apply storytelling about the local seasonal food ingredients they use in their restaurants. Food producers see a leak in consumer appreciation for their sustainable products. They want to share stories about their products; that is their passion. However, according to the food producers, stories get lost in the translation through intervention of many parties. While all food producers and chefs have different interpretations of sustainability, they have one thing in common: the need to share stories about local sustainable food products.

To discover whether consumers are open to storytelling in restaurants, in-depth research is conducted among eight participants. Exploration of a restaurant experience from the customers point of view, provides insights in how to enrich this experience.

All of the knowledge and insights are brought together in the Food for Thought toolbox. This toolbox contains multiple components that help chefs to create a storytelling concept for their restaurant. The Storytelling Guide gives chefs tips and examples to develop a storytelling concept. Next, the Restaurant Experience gives a deeper understanding of how guests experience a restaurant visit. With the Storytelling Template, chefs can get started themselves.

As icing on the cake, the toolbox includes an example of an end product that may result from using the toolbox. It is a card that can be given to guests when they leave the restaurant. The card should be accompanied by the ingredient of interest; in this example a pumpkin. When turning the card, the backstory is shown which involves a connection to the history of the Dutch food culture and De Tuin van Holland.

In the past decade, food waste has accepted intensive attention from society. It is increasingly acknowledged that approximately one-quarter of the food for human consumption is wasted throughout the food supply chain (Papargyropoulou , 2014). At the Delft University of Technology, It organizes a vast meeting every day in different facilities. The banquet service with the company of Cirfood would be the food supplier to provide the lunch for the guests during the meeting. Typically, the orderer needs to book the food from the “Banque” website, the official and only platform that merely offers the food for the Delft University of Technology.
In contrast, it must go through a long journey from booking the food to disposing of the food with conference organizers, the secretariat who is also the orderer, and the Cirfood caterer in a different stage. The project figures out the workflow of the banquet service and understands the problems of different stakeholders that meet during the process that cause food waste. The design solution achieved the vision: I envision a seamless banquet service aiming to help the organizers, orderers and audience collaborate to reduce food waste. The project ends with the holistic banquet service concept, which integrates with the website, APP, and packages to apply numerous design interventions for multiple stakeholders to meet their value towards collaborating to reduce food waste. In addition, validation has proven that the new service concept could achieve the goal of the design vision.

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.

Positive interactions amongst couples improve the quality of the romantic relationship they are part of along with their sense of well-being. It is known that maintaining a relationship takes active participation and work to avoid ending up in a relationship rut. Therefore, spending time together is a constructive way to maintain such a relationship. There are countless leisure activities, yet this paper focuses on how food connects people and can generate feelings of enhanced intimacy. The scope of the research centers adults living in The Netherlands, which are currently in a romantic relationship or have had previous experience with such a relationship. This paper contains research into the current dating culture, the food design scene in largely The Netherlands, intimacy in romantic relationships and how food connects people. In the secondary research section, a wide and explorative approach is taken by attending food design fairs, tantra classes, and fetish events to fully explore the extremes of ‘intimate connection’. Furthermore, Tinder dates were set up for an immersive experience and to discover how food sharing contributed to feelings of connectedness. Lastly, numerous food experiments were performed to ultimately lead to the final design. The final design is called Intime and is a food ritual where two people go on a date together at home. A cosy and warm blanket is placed on the ground somewhere in the house where the couple feels most at ease and they position themselves according to the design requirements. Each person receives their own dish with bite size chocolate balls, which they share with each other through handfeeding. This sensuous eating ritual sets the tone for a positive mood and ultimately generates feelings of connectedness.

Because of their over-concern with body shape and weight, chronic dieters may eventually damage their physical and mental health. Typical problems include hair loss, extreme hunger, depression, and food obsession. For the sake of their health, they have to get rid of chronic dieting and change their restrained eating behavior. This project will focus on chronic dieters who have been aware of the harm of a long-term restrained diet and are willing to change their current eating habits. Specifically, I will tackle the Chinese college female students who are in their 20s.
This project aims to develop a product that guides chronic dieters to counter their fear of eating and to finally formulate a personalized food ritual. Getting rid of restrained eating does not mean they will end up eating a lot of junk food and have a disastrous life. But they will be more mindful about the food they eat. Their focus will be shifted from calories or nutrition of food, and how food makes them gain weight to the essence of food and their internal feeling due to eating. In this way, they will receive positive experiences and memories that will confirm their decisions of giving up dieting to pursue a healthier lifestyle.
The result turns out to be a product that accompanies and guides the user to be more mindful throughout the eating journey. Foodpal is a product with a pair of chopsticks linked to a plant-growing app. The pressure sensor on the head of the chopsticks can monitor the user's eating speed, thereby affecting the growth of plants on the app. The interaction with the app encourages the user to be more mindful of the eating process. The growth of the plant on one hand is a metaphor for the recovery of the user's body due to eating. On the other hand, it is the reward for the user’s courage to fight against their fear of eating and gaining weight, so that they can be motivated to keep eating in a new mindful way.

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.

This project intends to develop the initial brand communication strategy for Foodtrick, an emerging frozen food service system that attempts to expand its business into the B2B market. The system provides a simplified cooking procedure to tackle operational hurdles in the food service industry, such as labour shortage and increasing food wastage. Although Foodtrick brings high efficiency, the bias of frozen food in buyers’ minds haunts the expansion of Foodtrick’s business. To achieve the ambition of Foodtrick, this thesis addresses the identification of potential markets, the formulation of the brand proposition and the design of the communication execution. The theoretical framework is formulated based on the literature on the interconnection between B2B buyer behaviour and emotional attributes. Two brand strategy tools, brand positioning and marketing communication, are introduced as the means to convey the value. To better formulate the brand proposition, one needs a comprehensive understanding of ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘how’. The intended result is to incorporate functional and emotional attributes to strengthen the perceived value of Foodtrick. Two stages of studies in positioning and communicating are performed. Positioning study results in the defining of prospective markets and developing understanding in B2B and B2C market circumstances. Communication analysis captures insights into the behaviour of buyers and end-users interacting with Foodtrick. The findings extracted from the two stages research are translated into the reshaped brand proposition, which is that Foodtrick delivers a single but simple solution (functional attribute) assisting buyers to become independent (emotional attribute). The new positioning of Foodtrick, a one-way meal preparation journey to navigate food services owners towards independent food services, intends to invite the ideal buyers to engage. Four principles namely accessible nutrition, knowledge transparency, consistent involvement, and ease of achievement are crafted to develop the final communication strategy. The three communication parts which are presented include visual identity, communication journey and landing page. The visual identity with a new name and logo is used to facilitate brand recognition. The communication journey portrays the required interaction and information to assist the internal team in developing brand experiences for future buyers, while the landing page is intended to demonstrate value and build external communication with buyers. These three parts are intended to be the initial steps and inspirations for the corporation’s brand launch in the near future. In conclusion, the outcome of this thesis provides a new way of thinking and strategy for communicating the value of the emerging food service system in the B2B market. Nevertheless, the final design remains several constraints and lack of external validation. The thesis concludes with suggestions and reflection for the further undertaking of Foodtrick’s brand development.

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.

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.