Foodpile

Long story short

Households buy more than they need, then bin the difference. Foodpile plans the shop so they don't.

Foodpile was built for AIESEC's YLX pitch competition, a brief to help young adults cut household food waste. It pairs a pantry that tracks itself with shopping lists generated from what you already have and the recipes you choose, so you stop buying food you will not use.

It won the National Prize. This is the research, the product and the business case behind it. Foodpile was a team project; my role was the UX/UI and the business model.

01 · The problem

Australia throws out one bin of food in six, straight from the kitchen.

The client was AIESEC, the world's largest youth-run and youth-led organisation, connecting young people to business and empowering them to drive sustainable social impact. The brief: help young adults cut household food waste, and contribute to halving it by 2030.

The scale is hard to picture. 17% of all food available to consumers in 2019 went into the bins of households, retailers and restaurants, enough loaded trucks to circle the Earth seven times. Households are the largest single share.

02 · The user

One person to design for: busy, well-meaning, and out of time.

Alex Kinley, 22. A packed schedule leaves him no time to plan meals or keep his pantry in order, so he overbuys, forgets what he already has, and throws food out. He wants to waste less, spend less, and do something for the environment without it becoming a chore.

03 · The research

Fifty surveys, interviews and focus groups pointed at one behaviour.

We surveyed 50 people, then ran interviews and focus groups to understand how young adults shop. 75% admitted they regularly buy more than they need. Nearly 60% said forgotten pantry items often went unused.

The problem was not willpower. It was visibility: people cannot buy well for a pantry they cannot see. That reframed the design from a meal planner into a way to make the pantry legible.

04 · Ideation

Forty ideas, cut to the few that actually stop overbuying.

We generated more than 40 concepts, then kept only the ones that attacked overbuying directly rather than adding features around it.

05 · The solution

Eliminate the human error in meal planning.

Minimise the time, money and effort spent on the shop. Foodpile does it three ways, shown here as the Figma prototype of the main user flow.

06 · The business model

Freemium, with a real reason to go premium.

Free to use, with a $2.99 per month tier that unlocks premium features, including a Marketplace for Leftovers. Revenue also comes from anonymised data insights and ads in the free version. That funds the recommendation algorithms, supermarket loyalty integrations and the interface.

07 · The projections

Modelled on a million downloads in year one.

Growth and retention were modelled on high-performing apps in the category. The financial projection extrapolated from those retention rates, a known CPC and click rate of 0.02, and an assumption of ten ad impressions per active user per day.

08 · The ask

Asked for $10k. Offered three times that.

We sought $10,000 for 20% of the business. The Academy of Entrepreneurs, then the largest startup incubator in the southern hemisphere, offered $30,000 for 10% on the condition that we could show 100 active users.

09 · Outcome

National Prize winner, judged by Google, the UN and a national ambassador.

Winning the AIESEC YLX Nationals confirmed the solution resonated with a wide audience. The clearest lesson was the value of considering business outcomes inside the product design process, rather than bolting a pitch onto a finished design.

Given more time, I would have run mid-stage user testing to make the interactions more engaging and tailored. The project is a study in balancing the speed of a pitch with the rigour of the design process, a trade-off I carry into every project since.