Helping Bakery Strik contribute to a circular economy

Abstract

STRIK is a well-known bakery in Nijmegen and surroundings, with currently 3 pastry shops, 2 chocolate/ice-cream shops and 1 central bakery for storing and production.
CEO van Geenen possesses a passion and talent for entrepreneurship and an expertise in pastry-making, but little affinity for- nor experience with sustainability. With the upcoming laws and regulations, governments are pushing companies to move from a linear towards a circular economy. However, a lot of companies, especially those smaller and medium-sized enterprises, struggle with implementing sustainable innovations. Guided by the Revamped Double Diamond model, this project tries to find an answer to the research question being: “How should STRIK patisserie contribute to a Circular Economy, while at the same time creating additional economic value?”, while sliding through phases of discovering, defining, developing and delivering.
In the first discovering & defining phase, the project finds areas of opportunity for economic, environmental and social value creating using the Triple Layered Business Model Canvas (TLBMC). Within these steps, amongst others, the company ecosystem is determined, just as a carbon footprint analysis was conducted to understand which are the most impactful categories in terms of greenhouse gas emission. Moreover, a company analysis leads to a list of implementation criteria in terms of ‘must’, ‘should’, ‘could’, and ‘won’t’ criteria. The conclusions from the TLBMC and criteria were used to define the design
challenge of: “How can we make STRIK’s food waste stream 100% circular while gaining economic and social benefits?”.
In the developing & delivering phase, ideas were generated and evaluated, leading to three selected concepts of 1) an educational web-page about food waste; 2) a new product line made from wasted parts ; and 3) a partnership for anaerobic processing of food waste. These concepts are turned into ‘minimum viable products’ for testing the key metrics of desirability and viability. From the results can be implied that there is a high desirability and viability for concept 2, while concept 3 can assure 100% circularity, concluding a recommended perseverance of concept 2 (new product line from wasted parts) as a first step and concept 3 (partnership for anaerobic processing) as a future step. The focus is on rapidly bringing concept 2 to the market, so further detailing is done on concept 2 only, looking into the product, packaging, price and promotion.
In a final ‘present & validate’ phase, the solutions for helping STRIK contribute to a circular economy are presented. The first and most important step towards circularity is making new products from wasted parts and promoting these in a qualitatively, tasteful and story-telling way. The validation phase concludes that, in addition to the earlier tested desirability and viability, that the solution hits the innovation sweet spot, as it is considered feasible, viable and desirable.
The thesis ends with a ‘discussion, conclusion & reflection’ chapter.