Knobie

Food waste is a growing global challenge, and the hospitality sector is a significant contributor. While much attention is often placed on consumer habits or agriculture, a massive portion of avoidable food waste in restaurants actually occurs during the preparation and planning stages. Chefs stand at a critical decision point in the food supply chain; the choices they make regarding ingredients, menus, and cooking methods ultimately dictate the ecological footprint of a restaurant.

Before developing a technical solution, we spent time observing and interviewing executive chefs in high-end hotel kitchens to understand the root causes of their food waste. We discovered that strict quality standards, unpredictable ordering patterns, and the separation of ingredients into edible versus inedible parts generated substantial waste. This highlighted the need for design interventions that could make practices like root-to-stem cooking more intuitive and help chefs manage their ingredients more dynamically.

To address these challenges, we created KNOBIE, a novel interactive recipe-planning system. Knowing that chefs work in a highly tactile and hands-on environment, KNOBIE uses a projected display on the countertop and a physical wooden knob as the input device. By moving the knob like a tangible cursor, chefs can visually build, blend, and organize recipes by dragging and dropping digital ingredients, preserving the physical sensation that is so central to culinary work.