Food  

What Every Food Enthusiast Ought To Know About Food Design Thinking

By Zainab Amoo

26 April 2020   |   11:00 am

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The Golden Rule: It’s all about the experience. “When creating great experiences, it's not so much about doing what users expect. Instead, it's about creating a design that clearly meets their needs at the instant they need it” - Jared Spool What if there was a tool you could use that would make your clients…

Food Design Thinking. | Photo Uber Eats

The Golden Rule: It’s all about the experience.

“When creating great experiences, it’s not so much about doing what users expect. Instead, it’s about creating a design that clearly meets their needs at the instant they need it” – Jared Spool

What if there was a tool you could use that would make your clients or consumers keep coming back for more of what you offer?

What if there was a tool that made you or your food brand seem like the next coolest kid around the block, just because you keep giving an experience that is worth telling about?

Eating and drinking are two of the most amazing experiences that make up our journey in life. It cuts through both our sensory pleasures and the stories we have to tell from the experiences we have from breaking bread with friends and family or just by ourselves.

What if you could design the food and drinks you consume? Regardless of if you did as chefs, business owners, product developers you name it, as long as you belong to the food industry then you would have great potential to make these experiences even richer and this can only be done through Food Design Thinking.

Food Design thinking is a concept that triggers your creativity and leads you to innovative ways of creating new dishes and recipes as a Chef seeking New Service Experiences, New Dining Experiences, Food Systems and anything in between that has to do with food and your consumer’s utmost satisfaction and their continual patronage. Yes! Food design thinking is where all the magic happens.

Food Design Thinking | Photo Uber Eats

So how do you go about this? Think like a designer. Make use of the methodologies available in design thinking to craft your creation. For instance, you can transform the knowledge and idea you have gotten from food cultures into creative solutions for your clients. What does this mean? It means combining familiar ingredients in unfamiliar ways like a cross-cultural fusion in a way that tells a story to your client. That is if you as a chef want to create a fine dining experience for a family that has a touch of their own food culture in it.

Another thing to note is that every great design begins with an even better story.
I believe that food is art and food is a story waiting to be told in the most impressive ways by the most creative minds. With food design, it all begins from the idea process aimed at creating food products, food services or food systems where design method and tools are designed specifically to facilitate reflection on the eating experience.

Food Art | Photo Haneefah Adams

Food design thinking will give you:
• Free advocacy for your brand.
• A tribe of committed foodies.
• Increase in sales.
• Likeability of the brand by consumers making it the most preferred amongst others.
• Would lead to consistent reinvention, creativity and innovation.
• Also in one way or the other, it helps in determining the expected flavour and texture of your speciality dishes.

Asides from the number one (1) reason why we eat, we also eat for the experience, we eat to share our stories, we eat to say hey! check out the new cool thing I am up to especially amongst millennial and Gen Z, this is why food design thinking is the future of the food industry and we all should get on that wagon.