Reimagined warehouse surplus food recovery into a digital donation workflow

That's me 😁

Team

7 Designers

1 Sr. Ops designer

1 UX Researcher

Primary role

Design Strategy

Service Design

UX Research

Interface Design

Timeframe

5 months project

Background, solution, and impact!

The focus was on driving sustainability through
new initiatives πŸš€.

Kroger sponsored this 2024 ECO Hackathon project to identify sustainability opportunities in warehouse operations and logistics, supporting its β€œZero Hunger | Zero Waste” goal to end hunger and eliminate waste by 2030.


We built ReSKU, a new digital workflow to simplify food recovery and channel surplus food (unsellable inventory) into foodbank donations.

Kroger warehouse perspective

Enabled inventory managers to track commodities, optimize donation decisions, connect with food banks, and auto-generate reports.

Foodbank perspective

Helped food banks coordinate, schedule, & track incoming inventory.

Potential Impact. Projected by Kroger's team.

2x

Employee Efficiency

Streamlined evaluation,
quick disposal or donation without multiple QA checks.

30%

Asset shrink reduction

Ensured timely warehouse assessments, preventing product expiry.

Boosting Kroger partnership

Enhancing PR, fostering community goodwill, and reinforcing brand loyalty.

The problem

The existing recoup process for unsellable inventory didn’t work well.

Unsellable inventory is the surplus warehouse inventory that can't be sent to stores but is still usable & consumable.


Tedious QA and process gaps led to the products being either recycled or disposed of.

Unsellable inventory and the existing process.

I proposed a three-fold approach focused on strategy, research, and mapping.

1. Defining a viable MVP scope!

Each unsellable categoryβ€”from produce to dairyβ€”has unique handling needs. We focused on low-friction products (Ambient goods) to ease Kroger’s first implementation.

Donation Feasibility βž”

Operational Complexity βž”

Ambient Goods

Bakery items

Fresh produce

Dairy products

Frozen foods

2. Getting inspiration from competitors

We researched how businesses manage surplus recovery processes and identified benchmark features to guide our design.

Marketplace

Product pickup

Real-time updates

Contact channels

3. Finding the Right Intervention Point for a new process

To pinpoint where the new integration should be implemented so it doesn't disrupt the existing warehouse processes.

Floor QA

Under NDA

Conceptualization and quick feedback

Idea 1: What if warehouses had a second-chance stores?

A dedicated area in each warehouse that would hold unsellable items, sorted by damage, with purchases made on-site or through an internal online shop.

Product in-flow

Identifying surplus during QA

● Over stock

● Damage

● Close to
expiration

Product discovery

Creating visibility for surplus food

● Associate
marketplace app

● Warehouse
displays

● Designated Aisles

Product out-flow

Supply from in-warehouse stores

● In-person
pickup

● Store
experience

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But Kroger experts gave us a crucial redirection

Before moving into design, we urged early feedback from internal Kroger stakeholders to test the viability of our idea.

πŸ‘πŸ»

A marketplace would work to show visibility for unsellable inventory.

πŸ‘ŽπŸ»

The idea could benefit from a community collaboration perspective.

πŸ‘ŽπŸ»

Kroger warehouses could face challenges with an in-store setup.

πŸ‘ŽπŸ»

The idea would require adding several new steps to the existing process.

Idea 2: What if warehouses had a donation system instead?

Receiving early feedback helped us make an informed pivot!


We quickly iterated on the new direction and proposed an idea better aligned with Kroger's Zero Hunger | Zero Waste mission.

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A donation system would boost community collaboration.

πŸ‘πŸ»

Scheduled pickups would work better than in-warehouse stores.

πŸ‘ŽπŸ»

Setting up a donation system would still add extra steps to the current surplus inventory recovery process.

Understanding the space and designing the user experience

How two warehouse visits prioritized digitization

The manual recovery process for unsellable inventory was ad hoc and scattered, disrupting the flow of other digitized warehouse operations.

Tedious Manual Tracking

Manual processes made data unreliable and tough to keep
track of.

Ineffective Reporting

Ad-hoc reporting led to miscommunication and tiring report generation.

Variable Systems

Each warehouse handles unsellable goods differently.

Solving 2 problems in 1 design solution

To digitize product recovery and improve the donation pipeline, we envisioned a revamped process to connect warehouses with foodbanks better.

How our idea helps?

Digital reporting & analytics

Better information retrieval, record-keeping, and prediction.

Official coordination channels

Channels for both synchronous and asynchronous communication.

Process standardization

Scalable procedures to replicate in other warehouses' process.

From idea to prototype in two weeks

With time short to ship, we turned to rapid prototyping. Working and testing our designs with Kroger's inventory control managers and design ops team.

4x Iterations

Shipping and presenting the end solution!

Introducing Kroger ReSKU.

Feature 1: Donation workflow snapshot

Managers needed to know what required their attention without digging through menus. We added a dashboard showing high-priority tasks, deadlines, and pending flagged inventory at a glance.

πŸ‘πŸ»

All 4 managers reported spending less time navigating to find key information.

Feature 2: Decision-focused info layout

Managers struggled to scan product details in the old manual process, slowing down decisions. We grouped related fields and surfaced key info for quick review, with expand options for more detail.

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πŸ‘πŸ»

β€œI can find what I need quickly now. Without having to click around or manually go for the QA.”

Feature 3: Marketplace and communication between managers and foodbank coordinators

Currently, communication was scattered across emails, calls, and spreadsheets. We integrated a built-in messaging system within the platform, creating one clear channel for donation coordination.

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Manager - β€œThis would speed up setting up donations with food banks.”

πŸ‘πŸ»

Foodbank coordinator - β€œI wouldn’t need to keep contacting Kroger managers to check surplus inventory.”

Other notable features

Data visualizations

Managers lacked clear, real-time insights to track trends and spot issues. We added filterable charts to show category breakdowns, history, and key surplus levels for quicker decisions.

Automated donation reports

Manual reporting was time-consuming and prone to errors. We introduced automated report generation, allowing managers to export donation summaries instantly, saving hours of work each week.

Digital reports

Contributing to Kroger's vision

We pitched our idea at the Eco-Kroger Hackathon, competing against internal Kroger teams. And our forward-thinking approach earned an honorable mention for aligning with Kroger’s ZHZW mission.

The Team πŸ€™πŸ»

Signing off

My key reflections

When designing new products!

Working in operational environments taught me that new solutions can’t just chase efficiency. They need to feel familiar, reduce friction, and build confidence for the people using them every day.

Context & people over everything

Spending time in the warehouses surfaced pain points we’d never hear in a meeting. It also built trust with managers, making them active partners in shaping the solution.

Business first mindset

Regularly checking back with the strategic vision helped us make informed design choices. Understanding that vision turned constraints into opportunities instead of roadblocks.

Thank you!