A meal-kit subscription app that offers free home delivery and discounts to customers paying with EBT cards.
TEAM
4 Product Designers
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DURATION
10 weeks
MY ROLE
Researcher,
Product Designer
TOOLS USED
Figma
CLIENT
AgriNovus Indiana
AgriNovus Indiana is a non-profit organization based in Indiana, United States, that aims to promote and accelerate the growth of the state's agbioscience sector.
CHALLENGE
13% of Indiana residents face food insecurity
This was the challenge we had to solve by creating a business model with adding a technological aspect to it.
GOAL
Drop the percentage of food-insecure folks from 13%
The solution to achieve this goal needed to meet two major requirements.
Client requirement
Build a self-sustainable business model
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Project requirement
Design a solution that helps food-insecure Hoosiers get access to food
ENVIRONMENTAL ANALYSIS
EBT cash does not pay for delivery charges, and a large number of food-insecure folks live in food deserts.
Environmental analysis was conducted to understand the problem space. The data collected in the desk research was divided into 4 categories: Market forces, Industry forces, Macroeconomic forces, and Key Trends.
These findings offered a comprehensive understanding of the project's context, enabling us to identify opportunities and challenges for our target audience.
What does the market look like?​
13%
Indiana residents have food insecurity (730,480 people)
(1 on 9 Hoosiers are food-insecure)
13%
Hoosiers receive 13% lower wages than the average American.
35%
Food-insecure children under the age of 18
12%
People live in poverty
What are the challenges?​​
1
Difficult SNAP registration process for retailer. Hence, not all stores accept SNAP payment.
3
SNAP does not pay for delivery
2
​If groceries get expensive, people move towards junk food which leads to health issues.
4
Stigma around being from low-income background
Narrowing down on our food-insecure user group
Low-income people living in food-deserts ​
People with SNAP benefits who are not able to use it
USER INTERVIEWS
Older adults are the most vulnerable food-insecure group
Interviews were conducted with the following participants; we were not able to find any participants from a food-insecure user group. Hence, we tried to learn about food-insecure folks from our primary and secondary research.
Founder of an NGO
NGOs and food banks seek financial support over material donations for sustainable operations.
Manager at Food Bank
Seniors are vulnerable food insecure user group, often lack nearby access to groceries and transportation.
Manager at Store
Near-expiry items are cheaper at retail stores. EBT cash excludes pre-cooked hot meals.
Farmer
Have to throw away a lot of misfit produce because retail does not accept those.
STRATEGIC VISION
Senior citizens are the most vulnerable user group
36%
Eligible senior citizens participated in SNAP in fiscal year 2018 (approx 648,000)
15.6%
Food insecure individuals are senior citizens
9.8%
Adults ages 60 and older who faced the food insecurity
Why to focus to focus on senior citizens in particular?
Indiana households experiencing hunger have the option of dialing 2-1-1 to connect with needed services. Between Jan. 1, 2020, and Dec. 4, 2022, there were 3,792 calls to 2-1-1 from Central Indiana adults age 60 and older requesting assistance obtaining food or a meal.
What is leading to food-insecurity among older adults even after receiving SNAP benefits from the government?
Large supermarkets offer cheaper, healthier food options than urban convenience stores, which stock more processed foods.
As supermarkets move out of cities and local stores close, healthy food becomes accessible mainly to those with cars or public transit access.
Older adults on fixed incomes face food insecurity but are less likely to use SNAP, possibly due to transportation issues to stores, leading them to depend more on meal delivery programs.
PROBLEM
How might we facilitate access to healthy foods for seniors and maximize the use of their SNAP/EBT credits without them going unused?
STRATERGIC BUSINESS EXPLORATIONS
Developed a business model that not only serves the general audience but also helps feed our food-insecure user group for a sustainable business model.
We explored three business models, and narrowed down our solution ideas by:
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Filtering out ideas based on economic and technical feasibility.
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Presenting all three concept flows to our client to collect their feedback on the ideas.
Cloud Kitchens
Delivery Business
After getting feedback from our client, we decided to go with the meal-kit business after incorporating their feedback in the solution.
Meal-Kits Business
So how does this meal-kit business work?
SimplySupper, a meal kit delivery service, accepts EBT/SNAP payment and serves everyone who wants to use our service, making our business model a completely self-sufficient business model.
What validated our business solution?
The revenue of the meal kit delivery market is forecast to grow to around 64.4 billion U.S. dollars by 2030
Two user groups:
-
People paying with EBT cash
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People paying with credit/cash
This makes the business self-sufficient.
Our senior citizens can afford healthy and hot meals every day with their EBT/SNAP cash
COMPETITIVE LANDSCAPE
Very few meal kits business accept payment via EBT card
Insights we gathered by performing competitor analysis:
-
The solution should have a feature to customize the meal kits and learn users' preferences.
-
Accept SNAP/EBT cards as a payment option
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We should focus on affordable and user-friendly meal kits.
BUSINESS MODEL CANVAS
Clear understanding of value propositions, cost structure and revenue streams
The team decided to create a Business Model Canvas (BMC) to gain a clear and visual understanding of the business model components and effectively communicate the strategy and value proposition with the clients.
THE SOLUTION
Clear explanation about the service in login/sign up page
We designed the golden flow for our application and kept our special user group, senior citizens, in mind.
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We took this approach because we wanted to focus on making it clear that SimplySupper wants to reduce food insecurity by showing that it accepts EBT/SNAP payments and giving special deals for users paying with EBT/SNAP.
Also, the onboarding process was designed in order to get fully personalized meal kits for our senior citizens.
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Onboarding process
This includes the user's food preferences, mode of payment, health conditions, allergies, and kitchen appliances. If the user chooses to pay with EBT cash, they will be eligible for the affordable special meal plans.
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Main screen
The home screen for the regular customers would have a "Donate" button to support SimplySupper feed our food-insecure user group.
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DESIGN CRITIQUE
Major improvement was done on the onboarding process
Our solution was critiqued by the client and experts from the food insecurity space, and with their feedback, the team was able to make informed design decisions.
What worked well?​
-
Adding a story behind the "Donate" button was a great idea to build empathy.
-
Catering to both food-secure as well as food-insecure user groups.
​
What needs improvement?​
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Consideration about users not having various kitchen appliances.
-
Define meal-kit costs for the food-insecure user group.
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Including non-SNAP food-insecure user group
​
IMPACT
Feedback from client and experts
"Looks like a great start to a new business idea. Also, I love how you guys are serving two customer groups."
"Introduction of using EBT cash on meal-kits sounds amazing!"
The donate feature is a good idea, even if they donate small amount it will be helpful. Every penny counts!!
NEXT STEPS
With the feedback collected, the list of tasks was made to address later on. These future explorations were made because we realized that there are food-insecure folks who are not eligible for EBT/SNAP due to various reasons, and excluding them from using this platform would not be fair as this solution is meant to feed food-insecure folks.
1
Introduce a sliding scale for food-insecure user group with no EBT/SNAP
2
Research on how to verify and confirm the income of the users for giving them discounts on the meal plans
3
Partnering with food banks after building trust with them
4
Explore website solution too as our main customer group is senior citizens
TAKEAWAY
My Learning Outcomes
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The importance of empathy while including vulnerable user groups in the design process.
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Including the clients in the design process to create a successful product
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Learned the importance of design critique and feedback from experts
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Learned about how to design a business model
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