Getting Americans motivated to reduce food waste
A journey into American consumer preferences and how UX research elevated Veggie Saver’s credibility.
Veggie Saver is an Australian-based company who have successfully marketed cloth produce storage bags that keep fruits and veggies fresh for 2 weeks longer and therefore reduce food waste.
Veggie Saver also donates a large portion of proceeds to charities that help victims of human trafficking
Now the company is expanding into the US and needed help doing so. They had some existing research in place but came to me to get inside the mind of the American consumer to see if they were speaking the right lingo - and to the heart - of Americans.
Project Details
Timeline: 7 weeks
Stakeholder: Peita Pini, Founder of Veggie Saver
Duration: March 2023 - April 2023
Tools: Miro, Figma, Zoom, UsabilityHub
My first step was to interview the stakeholders
I met with Peita Pini, founder and managing director of Veggie Saver, to get a better sense of the company as a whole, and how to best meet their needs for this UX research. Here’s what I learned:
The company wants to do a lot of good for a lot of people
Born from the mind of the founder Peita Pini who was tired of throwing away produce each week, Veggie Saver exists as a product that gives back in many ways. In addition to the positive impacts Veggie Saver has on the environment and saving families money, it also donates 5% of its profits to Destiny Rescue, a non-profit that saves children from slavery. Veggie Saver aims to empower over 1 billion people around the world to live waste and plastic-free and to have a net profit that contributes to over 10,000 children being freed from slavery and provided long term rehabilitation.
They’re moving into a global market, specifically the US
Veggie Saver is an offshoot of The Swag, an Australian company currently successfully selling a robust product line of produce bags. In order to take things to a global market the name was changed and the product condensed to one, less expensive product called the Veggie Saver.
Veggie Saver’s 3 Big Asks
1. How can we best serve up our offering in the U.S.?
Veggie Saver knows some things about the US market from previous research but would like to know more. For example, they have learned that Australians are more eco-minded, and Americans are more interested in non-toxic products. How are Americans spending their money? What motivates Americans? These questions were a starting point for my research.
2. How can we optimize our website for a U.S. Audience?
Are there changes that need to be made to the language of the site to better speak to the US audience?
3. Are there website changes to help drive sales in the U.S.?
A very simple, but very important question on the minds of the stakeholders was “should we integrate our Amazon store into the website?” Amazon has not yet reached ubiquity in the Australian culture like it has in the US, so the current Veggie Saver site does not link to Amazon. Instead it focuses on helping the user find a retailer near them to physically buy the product. They also wanted to know if changes to the “find a retailer” page were needed.
I wanted to find out first-hand how Americans would respond to the Veggie Saver proposition.
minutes long
30-45
40
average age
average income range
5
Interviews
mid - upper mid
Discussion Flow
1. General attitudes about wasting produce. How participants shop for produce, how they feel about wasting food, and whether they have ways of preventing it.
2. Learn about the physical veggie saver product. I showed them the veggie bag and explained how it worked.
3. Think out loud about the website. I let participants (mostly) freely browse the Veggie Saver website and think out loud.
Here’s the homepage that they viewed:
💡
Leveraging a psychology background as an interviewer
I aimed to pull insights from interviewees without leading them in any direction. I did this by drawing on my background as a trained group therapy facilitator. I strive to bring warmth and levity as I build rapport with the participants, use open-ended questions to help them express their thoughts, and continually communicate where we’re at in the interview so they are equal creators in the process.
Themes emerged while I synthesized the data
Participant quotes
These interviews provided so much rich data. I jumped right into organizing my findings in order to successfully mine the most relevant insights. In addition to taking notes while conducting my interviews, I also listened to each recording and wrote down the most relevant quotes. I organized all the quotes by interviewee and then separated all quotes into the most important categories. This method was crucial in being able to find my data while writing my research report.
Quotes organized into categories
Waste. Each participant expressed feelings of guilt and disappointment in themselves about wasting food.
Thoughts about the bag. Participants were uncertain if this product works, if it’s necessary, or if it’s worth the money.
Website Pros. The website was generally thought to be fun, friendly, and inviting.
Website Cons. Participants noted too many endorsements from sources that Americans don’t recognize, and that the scientific claims and charitable donations were not prominent enough.
What I heard in the interviews intrigued me
Personal guilt is the product motivator for U.S. consumers
Research participants all mentioned themes related to guilt, shame, and personal responsibility for wasting food.
Americans are skeptical of Veggie Saver
They asked…
Is it a gadget? My research participants wanted to know, “Am I being sold junk that’s going to end up in a drawer?”
Are these awards real? Who are these endorsements from? The website shows a rather lengthy awards and media section, they didn’t mean a lot to some participants because they were from organizations they had never heard of.
Can I trust the phrase “scientifically proven"? Participants felt that this phrase is thrown around a lot. They wanted to see the research.
Veggie Saver’s higher purpose and the science behind it are secret weapons
People were willing to spend more on the product when they learned about Veggie Saver’s mission to reduce global waste, and the fact the company donates so much money to an anti-human trafficking organization.
Before
learning about the mission of Veggie Saver
→
After
learning about the mission of Veggie Saver
$20-$30
$10-$15
What I learned:
Veggie Saver’s website needs an evolution, not a revolution.
The site needs relatively minor, though very important tweaks to succeed in the U.S.
Industry Analysis of mission-focused companies
I looked at other mission-focused companies to gather ideas on how they effectively communicate their values to their audience. Since the mission of the company is a strength of the brand, it was my goal to bring that to the forefront.
Tom’s
Pategonia
Concious Step
I started reorganizing the home page
I used the insights from the interviews to reorganize the IA of the homepage to better match what information was actually important to the research participants
Deliverables
My delivery came in the form of a research report. I explained my research findings and created visual examples of design recommendations for the information architecture of the home page.
Improve Information Architecture of the Veggie Saver homepage
My goal was to improve user engagement with the homepage. I designed a wireframe that prioritized the most important information to research participants.
Deliver the research report
I presented my findings to stakeholders and delivered them a research report detailing:
Executive Summary
Research Objectives
Research Process
Narrative Summaries of Each Interview
Website Recommendations
Summary
As a designer, the research I conducted for Veggie Saver gave me a deep look into the emotional rationale behind people’s behaviors and spending habits. I was grateful for the opportunity to continue honing my interviewing skills and I believe I was able to make people feel at ease, give them space to speak their minds, and draw out the crucial information needed to deliver valuable insights to this client.
In summary, here is what I took away from this research initiative:
Culture is key. Australians and Americans value different things.
Emotion is greater than rationality when it comes to food waste.
Skepticism is rampant but can be overcome.
Leading with purpose can make an emotional connection.