Food Secure
Food Secure
2015 - 2016
Food Waste Team in Design For America @MIT
Collaboration with Package Concierge, Margaret Fuller House Neighborhood, & IDEO Food Co-Lab; funded by Autodesk team Fusion360
Skills Developed — gathering customer and market data, idea generation, opportunity identification, prototyping, user testing, thermal analysis, and client management
One in ten households in Massachusetts suffer from food insecurity. Many families rely on pantries but pantry accessibility is restricted due to limited business hours and locations. For those who are single parents or have demanding hours, traditional food pantries do not work. FoodSecure is a system that is open 24/7 to guarantee people access to food and living supplies when they need it.
FoodSecure is an external food storage locker that acts as an extension of an existing pantry. The pantry’s volunteers will maintain, repair, and replenish the locker daily. As a user, all you need is a personal key to access the food locker. Once an approved key is entered, the locker with the oldest food parcels will open for collection.
We interviewed many pantry stakeholders, from the suppliers to the users, and used their feedback to shape the project’s framework. We partnered with food rescue programs to deploy and test our first prototype. In addition to product definition and refinement, I worked on early smart locker prototyping, insulation design, and thermal analysis.