The UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development reflects the increased global awareness of the problem of food loss and food waste. Goal 12.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals calls for halving global food waste at the retail and consumer levels by 2030 and reducing food losses in production and supply chains.

We care about food waste so much, that this year, the Government of the Republic of Slovenia adopted the Decision on declaring a Slovenian Day without wasted food on April 24.

At Shape we decided to take this product discovery into our hands and research restaurant food waste, asking Where do the biggest losses happen? first. And also,

Why isn't a product like 2Good2Go available in Slovenia yet?

In part 2 of this article, we’ll be sharing how we structured our research, what we discovered and what are the main issues that are preventing products such as 2Good2Go to launch in Slovenia. Find out how to apply our product discovery steps to your own ideas in Part 1

Our Food waste Research methods

We had an idea for a solution similar to 2Good2Go before we started, but knowing that product discovery is important before building, we went out and researched the problem by its core. In the restaurants and catering businesses. To prepare for the interviews we did not prepare a business plan, solution, or a business model pitch. Instead, we focused on listening by asking about their personal experience with food waste issues and specifics of their industry, to understand the problem more.

Next was the good part. Literally. We took the initiative and tested ordering on the 2Good2Go app in Vienna, to observe their Order & Pickup flow.

Preparing Questions for Restaurant Owners

We contacted and spoke with the owners and managers of some of the biggest Slovenian restaurants to better understand their operations as we looked into food waste issues there. This was our research question sheet:

• How are you currently solving this issue?
• What kind of produce goes to waste the most & how do you trash it?
• What types of servings are the most wasteful? Brunch, catering, dinner nights?
• What kind of results do you expect from a new solution?
• When would you expect to see those kinds of results?
• What are the must-have features of a solution?
• Is this solution something you see yourself using?
• Do you already see some HACCP-related issues?

What we discovered?

Some restaurants even have a really good system of using excessive amounts of food for employee lunches and can take the food home. However, there is an opposing side to this issue: restaurants that forbid employees from taking meals home to avoid any conflicts. We mentioned the first bits of our discovery in Part 1.

While ordering on 2Good2Go we discovered that the main things to consider are scheduling orders and pickups from a customer’s point of view and the importance of the cancel option in the app. Here’s how it works:

• Orders can be placed in the morning by a certain time (around 10 am) - This makes sense, as this way, restaurants do not need to pack items that won't be picked up. Plus, restaurants have a guaranteed customer for the leftover meals.
• The collection time is usually limited to 1 hour (say between 10 pm and 11 pm) and the customer has to identify the order with a code.
• Most restaurants have a fixed (pre-calculated) number of leftover meals available per day.
• There is a cancelation button, which is important, as it is better to cancel than to prepare and leave at the restaurant without picking it up.

Main issues when implementing Saas products for preventing food waste in restaurants:

The main issue they all seemed to mention is the strict HACCP regulation. The EU has some of the strictest food regulations in the world, with rules covering every aspect of the food supply chain from production to consumption. Failure to comply with these regulations can result in fines ranging from a few thousand euros to millions of euros, depending on the severity of the violation, so we can imagine no one wants to put their business in a risky situation like this. But as 2Good2Go is already seamlessly operating in Austria, we believe this obstacle can be dealt with with a correct approach.

One of the main problems restaurant owners are worried about is a change in consumer habits with an app like 2Good2Go around. They fear that providing p2p (peer 2 peer) reviews about excessive meals at the restaurants could possibly draw the original guests away, or that the guests would make a habit to wait for a cheaper meal just a few hours later.

Another thing is that established restaurant brands with famous chefs, don’t want to be branded on “leftover meals”. We proposed marketing it as “saved bites” or something similar to target its positive impact.

Read more on how to apply our product discovery steps to your own ideas and why we started researching food waste in the first place:

Part 1: Product Discovery: food waste prevention in the Slovenian restaurant business

If you're interested in starting a business that addresses food waste, we'd love to hear from you. Let's connect and discuss this further!

👉 Schedule a meeting today