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Designing Zest’s Waste Map to reveal hidden losses in food production

Seven times more food is wasted in factories than in supermarkets, and 70% of that waste is still perfectly edible – yet most manufacturers have no clear picture of where it happens or how much it really costs them.

Zest’s waste map turns fragmented factory data into a simple, visual picture of where food is lost and where edible surplus could have created value instead of being written off.

Role & Results: Led end‑to‑end UX: user research, flows, wireframes, and UI strategy | Partnered with PM and engineers on requirements and delivery | Directed a UI designer on high‑fidelity execution.

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Challenge

Food manufacturers are under pressure to cut waste and emissions but often lack sight of where exactly in the production food waste is created or how to avoid food turning into waste and all the associated costs that come with it.

Approach

The waste map brings together data from across the factory into a stage‑by‑stage view of how food moves through production, where it is lost, and where it ends up.

Outcome

The waste map now gives manufacturers a shared, clear picture of their biggest waste hotspots and opportunities, becoming the natural starting point for reduction, redistribution, and wider optimisation work.

Context and problem

Why waste in factories is so hard to see and deal with

Food manufacturers treat most losses the same, even when much of that “waste” is still perfectly edible – hiding both the true cost and a huge opportunity to do better

Understanding waste in food factories is messy.

Most sites do not distinguish practically between edible surplus and true waste – anything that can't be easily 'reworked' into the production, is essentially considered inedible waste and, in best case scenario, sold at a big loss as animal feed. Factory incentives, entrenched processes, and fragmented data make it hard to keep production losses edible, even when everyone agrees waste is a big problem.

At the same time, this blind spot offers a huge opportunity.

When Zest analysed individual production lines in detail, we repeatedly found interventions that could avoid thousands of tonnes of waste per year or save up to seven figures annually on a single production line. With tighter regulation, rising ingredient costs and growing demand for food donations, this became the perfect moment to act – and Zest set out to build a solution that could turn that hidden waste into real value.

Approach & Process

Designing a standardised, scalable product for wildly different factories

Zest had just pivoted from a B2C “wonky veg” service to a B2B food‑waste technology platform, with no existing digital product and product–market fit still emerging.

Every production line we met looked completely different – cereals, confectionery, ready meals – raising a key question: how do you design something repeatable when every factory follows a unique process?

Early schematic process representation of a chocolate bar production line

My experience as a former co‑founder came in useful: I was familiar with shaping products from 0–1 under tight constraints.

With input from the Zest founders and team, I led the evolution of the “waste map” from a one‑off analysis into a candidate for a scalable, digital product, iterating it with insights from factory staff, ESG officers, quality teams and external experts.

Over countless iterations and working sessions, we tested ways of representing very different production lines, using the same underlying structure.
The goal was a map that lets manufacturers see, at a glance, where waste appears, how much it is, and where it currently ends up – without needing to understand every nuance of the underlying data.

An earlier iteration of a Static Waste

From insight to interface

Turning messy factory data into a clean, intuitive map that makes waste hotspots obvious at a glance, not in spreadsheets

I was responsible for refining the concept into something concrete: shaping the core flows, interaction patterns and visual language of the waste map.
We moved from schematics and custom drawn flow diagrams to wireframes and then to production‑ready UI that could sit inside Zest’s app and scale to different types of production lines.

Because Zest is still learning with every pilot, the design remains intentionally flexible: we’ve kept the components modular so we can adapt the map as we discover new factory needs, without reinventing the whole experience.

Examples of UI components used in iterations of the Waste Map

Wastemap Screen recording.mp4

Partnering with data scientists, engineers and PM to move from pilot analyses to a live product that fits real factory workflows

Delivering the waste map was a joint effort. I partnered with data scientists who modelled material flows, a full‑stack engineer who built the platform, and a PM who helped keep pilots and external stakeholders aligned and involved.

My role was to sit at the intersection: turning raw analyses into a coherent story, challenging complexity where it did not serve users, and ensuring what we shipped could later be productised rather than staying as a bespoke “project output”.

Outcomes & Impact

The importance of the Waste Map for Zest

The waste map is becoming the backbone of Zest’s young app: the first touchpoint where manufacturers see their own data turned into a clear picture of losses and opportunities for optimisations.
It is now used to anchor sales and pilot conversations, helping prospects quickly understand where Zest can have impact and setting up follow‑on work in alerts, redistribution and wider optimisation.

As we roll it out to the first users, it is positioned to be a core driver of Zest’s value delivery: every new feature – from live monitoring to surplus allocation – builds on the shared language established by the waste map.

Reflections and what's next

This project sat in a particularly challenging space: validating product–market fit while designing a product that had to be credible for large, conservative manufacturers.
In parallel, Zest was building its product team almost from scratch, the emerging team still new to product thinking and discovery practices.

I enjoy operating in such ambiguity – helping the team separate signals from noise, choose which problems to commit to, and design solutions that could grow from pilot artefacts into a lasting platform.
Next, I’m excited to see the waste map underpin more insights, uncovering not only where waste happens but actively guiding factories towards the most effective interventions.

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