Everyone eats. We all consume food that was prepared, purchased, shipped, and produced. In today’s high paced world, it has become increasingly more difficult to find products that are healthy, sustainable, and reliable in a society driven by convenience. Although many people recognize that sustainable food practices will become necessary in the near future, if they aren’t already, information about the food practices followed for any product are restricted to a small “organic” or “fair trade label,” neither of which offer adequate information to the consumer in order to make an informed decision. In order to truly make an informed decision, an extensive amount of research is required, an activity that the average consumer lacks both the time and the motivation to carry out. The lack of centralization of food sourcing information causes a disconnect between ideology and practices. In order to combat this dilemma, we propose a mobile application that allows consumers to easily access the necessary information on the food they are about to purchase. Our application will bring together information on food sourcing, practices, and sustainability ratings in a centralized location. Not only would this make those who are already trying to be sustainable better at their task, but it would also sustainable manner but are unsure where to start. The application could facilitate large scale food system changes as well. By ensuring that this information is available to any and all with a smartphone, it would force some of the larger companies to hold a degree of responsibility for the products they ship out. No longer would these companies hide behind anonymity, and no longer will the smaller, homegrown producers suffer being overshadowed. Our hope is that by promoting transparency, big agribusiness will have to respond to consumer demand. foodShed will level the playing field, creating a fair economy where both the consumers and suppliers of all scales benefit.
Writeup Files for each assignment
Vincent B - User Testing
Shalom RY - Development
Raymond YL - Documentation
Nathan T - Team Manager, Design