Improving Food Safety: Understanding Consumer Behaviour in Chilled or Frozen Food Purchases with “Design Thinking”

Abstract

An innovation is introduced to improve the situation of storing and transporting chilled or frozen perishable items by applying design thinking approach based on the IDEO method of Stanford d.school. This study was initiated to find out the problems faced by consumers when buying their chilled or frozen foods, and come up with a holistic solution through “design thinking techniques” to tackle their existing problems especially pertaining to the maintenance of temperature integrity along the journey from outlet to their home. Seven respondents from various backgrounds (professional, business owner, retiree, expatriates and person with special needs (disability) were interviewed at various places including at hypermarkets, coffee café, primary school, office, online conversation and at their home within Klang Valley and Johor Bahru. The instrument used was a semi-structured interview and all inputs were analysed thematically. The design thinking approach was used, focusing on resolving the problem posed by increase in storage temperature whilst transporting chilled and frozen foods due to direct exposure to sunlight that would increase the temperature in the car trunk, thus without proper temperature control through the usage of a specialized container, the foods would deteriorate faster and lead to speedy growth of microorganisms that could lead to foodborne illnesses. Based on the findings, it was concluded the development of a “specialized storage box” was deemed the best solution in addressing consumers’ pains and gains with regards to transporting their chilled or frozen foods. Therefore, the implementation of the temperature-controlling storage device holds promising results in reducing spoilage, improving efficiency, and ensuring the quality of the chilled or frozen items during transportation. This study proposes an option to consumers in preserving their foods whether chilled or frozen during transportation between market and home, thus ensuring food safety.