In June, we rolled out a 2-week pilot of our meal plan to find out whether
it’s as affordable, convenient, and tasty as we say it is, as well as a
feedback survey for undergraduate students to discover motivations
behind food and shopping behaviours. 40 people participated in our open
pilot and 17 students started responses to our survey, and we received
some useful feedback to help us in developing our September meal plan
challenge.
Overall, it seems that people liked the meal plan for encouraging them to
try new things and giving them a structured method for avoiding food
waste. 83% said they would be more likely to try our recipes
in future,
67% said they would shop more locally and 67% said they would eat more
vegetables. We’re happy that there is an appetite for cooking with
vegetables and using local shops for ingredients.
Convenience and affordability were the biggest issues people found in
following the plan. We are looking at the option of producing a store
cupboard meal plan starter pack with ingredients like spices, oils so that
people can use their local shops to buy the weekly fresh produce they
need, as well as exploring ways to collaborate with local businesses, for
example through veg boxes, to tackle convenience issues.
People also followed the recipes less on weekends, but there was no drop
from week 1 to week 2, which is great news. The fact that the recipes
were not vegan also came up in several responses, as well as the
suggestion to have separate vegan and non-vegan recipe books, and we’ll
be looking to improve accessibility for vegans going forward.
We will be hosting a workshop on 3rd of August to bring together our
chefs, nutritionists, business stakeholders, designers, and students to look
at other exciting ways to tackle the issues highlighted in the pilot
feedback. We hope that the improvements to the meal plan will ensure
we’re ready to launch in September!
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