The Problem

In the UK, 1 in 4 families are struggling to feed their kids. (Trussell Trust, 2024) As living costs rise, food bank users now are not who we might expect — more “Working Households” are facing hardship in providing their family. While they earn enough to cover utility bills, there is simply not enough left feed their family after paying the essentials. But still most of them may be currently being excluded from this support.

4.5M

Households are facing food insecurity in the UK in 2024 (14.1M people in total)

62 %

Recipients are employed but still couldn’t afford enough food for family

6 of 10

Households had not used any charitable food provision in the past year

Understand Current Situations
in Food Support

With a tight research timeline, contextual inquiry was combined with interviews to immerse in the system directly and understand stakeholders' circumstances, needs, and pain points firsthand.

Then validate our hypothesis with experts through a workshop session to test our insights and identify working household pain before ethical clearance came through.

* Interviews with recipients followed an ethical research framework

3 Site Observation

Volunteering at warehouse & food charity to learn how food reaches people

5 Stakeholders Interview

Face-to-face sessions with NGO staff, volunteers, and an expert to learn about current pain

Workshop: Testing hypothesis & User Learning

Research findings were translated into strategy hypotheses on a rough future-state vision then tested with experts. Also to learn about Working Households and their barriers before speaking with them directly due to the ethical clearance was still in progress.

System map of how food support system works from Food Redistribution NGO to Local Food Hubs (Food Bank/Hot Food Kitchen/Pantry) allocation, then finally received to the working households. With findings each stage from our site observation and interview included

Journey Map analysis from both working households and volunteer workflow

Define the Opportunity Area

We wrap up our findings, through mapping out a food journey to proirtise the most problem to enhance but the most undersupported stakeholder as our opportunity area focus.

We recognised that ...

Food support challenges stem not only from supply & deliver, but whether people can actually reach and local ability to manage food also matters.

Key Insight 1

People barely knows other ways of local support exists besides referral food banks

When people think of food support, food parcels are usually what comes to mind. Food Pantries and Community Kitchens that could ease the same hardship remain largely invisible.

Key Insight 2

Both physical and mental barriers keep Working Households away from seeking support

This include hard to find food support fixed to their schedule, and it might represent the evidence of failure that they couldn’t provide for their family.

Key Insight 3

Local support operations vary hub to hub, making food support feel scattered and unsustainable

Each local food hub has its own opening hours, intake processes, and eligibility rules. Without a centralized information flow, the broader food support network remains disjointed and difficult to navigate.

Key Insight 4

Volunteers carry the front line without a structured workflow

Once food reaches local charities, the people closest to recipients are left to improvise, running day-to-day operations without a standardised process, under-resourced and unsupported by the system around them.

“It's humiliating to admit that I can't afford enough food for my child. I had to visit 5 food banks before I finally got some food, because there’s hardly any useful information online. ”

— Research participant, working full-time

Key barrier 1 – unpredictable access

Hard to find open hours and egibility in advance makes access unpredictable and hard to plan around working hours.

Key barrier 2 – social stigma & Isolation

Being asked to explain their situation makes seeking help feel exposing. This often becomes a silent barrier to asking for help but feel isolated.

Key barrier 3 – unfamiliar food received

Receiving unfamiliar food without guidance at food support often leads to frustration and waste.

“We try to understand each household so we can give food that actually works for them. But we never know who’s coming or what food we’ll have each week, so we just try our best to serve them.”

— Volunteer at local food bank

Challenge 1 – Maunal Queue Management

Scattered and outdated service information forces volunteers to manage queues and explain rules and eligibility to visitors manually.

challenge 2 – Improvised daily Operations

Food handling and distribution become reactive; volunteers juggle queues, food, and questions simultaneously, increasing stress and operational errors.

challenge 3 – Fragmented coordination

Unclear roles and lack of shared task coordination lead to duplicated effort and gaps in responsibility.

Problem statement

Food support system has a “narrow entry” for people to step in , stemming from double pressure on recipients' barriers & community challenges, making access to support unpredictable and unsustainable.

How might we...

make community food support easier to find, use, and engage with while supporting volunteers with smoother coordination?

The Big Idea — Reimagining a New Touchpoint for Accessing

Feedie transforms food aid from a one-way transaction into a shared community experience. By making support easier to navigate and manage, Feedie enables people to engage with food support with greater dignity and stronger community trust.

The Vision:
Enhancing Community Networking

Feedie acts as a bridge, strengthening the flow of information, preparation, and care across the system.

By improving shared visibility, supporting volunteer coordination, and surfacing recipient voices, it shifts food support toward a more responsive, relational network.

This enables stronger feedback loops between redistribution NGOs and local hubs, fostering a more dignified, predictable, and community-centred support experience.

review

This project began as an investigation into the pain points of working households and evolved into a holistic systemic intervention for food support as we recognized that user friction was a symptom of under-supported community operations.

Given the constraints of working with ethically vulnerable recipients, traditional academic research methods proved impractical. We therefore adopted an iterative validation approach — forming hypotheses through observations, then rapidly testing them through targeted interviews with real stakeholders.

This allowed us to maintain research rigor within a strict 4-month timeline while staying grounded in frontline realities. And this project doesn’t stop at academic exhibition; we are currently exploring pilot opportunities with NGOs and planning further user validation to strengthen and refine the system.

Other works

Tate Teens

Collaboration with Tate to define brand strategy and engagement roadmap that reconnects teens to art and museums

Logitech x LOL gaming collection

IP collaboration with League of Legends to develop a softer product language for Logitech G's expansion into lifestyle audiences

Logitech G CLOUD web design

Redesigned product page to elevate overall browsing experience across Logitech G's official site

A food support platform making social services easier to find and more dignified to ask for

Role

Category

Duration / Year

Project Overview

Iterative Research through Design Process