From Farms to Fridges: A Consumer-Oriented Design Approach to Sustainable Food Traceability

Abstract Consumer information and engagement are important for establishing sustainable consumption practices. While previous research on information provision with traceability apps focused on persuasion at the point-of-sale, consumer research highlights the importance of clearly communicating a dynamic shelf-life and providing practice-relevant information to support sustainable practices from purchase to disposal. Following a three-step design case study approach, this paper reports the design of a food traceability app. First, we explored consumer practices and requirements. Second, we developed a prototype in co-creation with consumers, and finally, we evaluated the prototype with 134 consumers at four wholesalers to further understand the design and acceptance of the concept. Consumers appreciated the concept of supporting consumer practices from purchase to disposal and the clear communication of the different shelf-life dates. Our results highlight how we can design apps as a tool to support informed decision making, including sustainability as well as diet-related metrics and practical guidance for inexperienced consumers. We found consumers to value a bi-directional connection to the supply-chain, where they can provide feedback and preferably connect their home devices in the future. In summary, our results contribute to a more consumer-oriented design of food traceability apps that aim to support sustainable food consumption.