Save the Kiwi: Encouraging Better Food Management through Behaviour Change and Persuasive Design Theories in a Mobile App

Managing food waste is a means to improve our environmental and economic sustainability, and is achievable both societally and personally. We conceptualized "Save the Kiwi", a personal mobile application that communicates food safety information to encourage better food management, primarily in consuming purchased food products before they expire. Instead of simply relaying food information to its user, the application combines elements of behaviour change and persuasive design theories, and uses personified icons to notify its user about the expiry conditions of the associated food items. In an exploratory study, we found that the application has the potential to help users reduce their food waste. We discuss our results and recommend future work to create a viable solution to address food waste issues.