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Phase: Review

Designed to Deliver

The Delivery Box ensures order-in food arrives in pristine condition while eliminating any unnecessary waste from food packaging.

Photo of Amy
10 37

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Customer Problem

Food delivery services, such as DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Postmates, are becoming increasingly popular as more consumers choose to eat professionally made food at home. Yet there remains two major pain points that make the experience of ordering-in worse than dining out: (1) food is spilled or damaged in transit and (2) the food is cold or melted by the time it arrives. These pain points exist because food delivery services platforms have enabled new types of restaurants to offer food delivery. However, many new restaurants serve foods that do not travel well because existing delivery bags were not designed to accommodate the variety of foods offered. Some foods are too delicate; some foods are sensitive to temperature changes; and some foods contain lots of liquid. The food delivery market has changed, but the delivery bag has stayed the same. As such, many restauranteurs have created workarounds by using multiple plastic bags, heavy duty containers and more foam food packaging. 


Drivers also face pain points when delivering food. The most cited problems include undesirable odors left by the food and food spillage – both lead to cleanup costs for the drivers and reduced efficiency. Like restauranteurs, many drivers have created workarounds by using elastic bands, foam, cardboard dividers, smaller boxes and tape to secure the food they are delivering. 


Product Solution

The Delivery Box is designed specifically for delivering food with cars to improve the order-in experience for diners, restaurants and drivers. It has four main features:

  • Rigid structure to support the weight of the food and provide excellent insulation.

  • Exterior attachment mechanism to secure the box to the passenger seat or trunk for added stability during transportation.

  • Double hinged lid on the top to seal the food in, maintaining the desired temperature and preventing odors from polluting the car. 

  • Interior elastic cord and loop system to secure bags of food and round liquid containers in place. 


Through an improved design, Delivery Box will elevate the order-in experience to be as good as the dine-in experience and will also reduce unnecessary food packaging waste from restauranteur and driver workarounds. 

Which Nike Grind materials will your idea utilize?

  • Rubber Granulate
  • EVA Foam Sheets & Blocks
  • EVA Foam Components
  • Laminated EVA Foam

How specifically will these materials be incorporated into your solution?

The Delivery box will be built with three materials from the Nike Grind materials list: laminated PU foam, EVA foam sheets/blocks/components, and rubber granulate. The laminated PU foam will be used to provide insulation for the interior of the Delivery Box. We chose the PU foam for its insulating characteristics and structure. We will mechanically recycle the PU foam by crushing the PU foam waste, and then use the hot press and steam process to soften and self-bond the foam fritters [1]. The EVA foam and rubber granulate will be used to create the exterior of the Delivery Box and the interior cord and loop system. We chose the EVA foam because it is soft, shockproof, non-slip, anti-stress and strong. We will manipulate the foam scraps to achieve these characteristics. The EVA foam scraps will go through a physical recovery process so that they become flexible flakes [2]. We will heat and form the EVA flakes into sheet material [3]. We will then use our vacuum form machine to heat up the foam sheets over wooden or molds. These molds will be custom created with our Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine. For prototypes we can add an adhesive or binder to the EVA Flakes so that we can spread it into a mold and wait for the EVA to cure. We chose rubber for the elastic cords because it has good tensile strength, ability to elongate, and resilience that allows it to return to the original state when the deforming load is removed. The rubber will also go through a physical recovery process so that it will become crumbs [4]. The rubber crumb can be melted and rolled out to form sheets that are sliced and combined to create the elastic cords in our design.

Please include a visual (can be either 2D or 3D) representation/prototype of your concept. (required)

What is the current stage of development of your idea?

  • Research & Early Testing

Describe your target market. Who will benefit from your product?

Food delivery services will be the primary target market as they are most likely to purchase the Delivery Box to improve the experience for all stakeholders. Improving the experience for diners will lead to a direct increase in revenue as better experiences encourages diners to order more frequently. An increase in order volume coupled with improved experience for restauranteurs will then encourage more restaurants to offer delivery with this service. This creates a virtuous cycle.

How will you scale your idea? Please describe in detail your plan to scale your concept.

We will scale the Delivery Box by selling directly to the food delivery services companies. Focusing on delivery services companies will allow us to penetrate the market faster since we will be able to focus on selling to a few large platforms that each serve between 5-20% of the market as opposed to individual restaurants or delivery drivers. If convinced, these platforms will likely order a large and recurring volume since they will provide it as standard equipment when onboarding new delivery drivers. Delivery service companies will likely be interested in purchasing the solution since purchasing better equipment for their drivers is a more scalable and cheaper way to improve their service. The biggest obstacle we foresee is that delivery service companies already have existing suppliers for insulated bags. We will overcome this obstacle by publicly demonstrating the advantages with engaging social media campaigns (see attachments).

How is your idea innovative?

Our idea is innovative for two reasons: (1) it increases diner choice and (2) it uses waste to reduce waste. First, the Delivery Box will increase diner choice by solving major pain points of food delivery through a solution that is deliberately designed for all stakeholders. Second, the Delivery Box is also innovative because uses recycled waste materials from the athletic wear industry, to reduce waste materials from the food packaging industry.

What inspired this idea?

I was walking down the street and saw a delivery person fumbling with his delivery bag. This simple action reminded me of the user research that I conducted for the Uber Eats team. I remembered the pain points in food delivery and how many issues.

Tell us about yourself and your team. What is your background and experience?

Amy Chong is a user researcher and industrial engineer. David Zacher is an industrial designer, sustainability advocate, and entrepreneur. We focus on user-centric design for socially responsible products and systems that fit into eve

In what city are you located?

San Francisco

In what country are you located?

USA

Please describe how becoming a Top Idea will support the growth of your concept.

A share of the $50,000 prize and a potential partnership with Nike will allow us to manufacture and assemble the first batch of delivery boxes in our studio. Depending on the prize amount, we could be able to create several hundred Delivery Boxes. This will allow us to tweak the design faster and learn from users quickly and immediately. Being the Top Idea will also provide us some support and guidance on setting up a factory production run. The combination of seed money, Nike’s Grind material a

10 comments

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Photo of Sagar
Team

Hi,
What a great idea!! Food delivery services are getting popular nowadays, and you can pretty much see them throughout Australia. As a UberEats user myself I am always wondering whether my food will get to me still warm and in good condition.

My concern at this point will be how to offset the cost of the product since other packaging alternatives are very cheap, though I am aware that it is already presented in the proposal. My other concern would be whether these boxes can be used for branding by these companies. In addition to this, for services that use bikes and motorbikes to transport the food, how lightweight/heavy and movable would your box be for the delivery staff?

Good luck

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Photo of Yan
Team

Good idea that very innovative and pracical! Does it take long to make this material?

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Photo of Amy
Team

Thanks for reviewing our idea, Yan! We haven't test Nike's Grind material before so we don't know an exact timeline, but we don't imagine it to be too long. Especially with direct access to tools.

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Photo of DeletedUser
Team

DeletedUser

This is a very well thought out idea - very innovative and practical! If there is a food spillage inside the delivery box, is the material easy to clean?

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Photo of Amy
Team

Hi Winnie! Thanks for your positive feedback! Yes, the material will be easy to clean and because it folds down, it'll be easy to wipe as well.

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Photo of Michael Coelho Sillman
Team

cool idea

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Photo of Amy
Team

Thanks for reviewing and your comment, Michael Coelho Sillman !

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Photo of Magui Trucco
Team

Hi Amy! the concept sounds very interesting, it occurs to me that perhaps the design of the box may have some details that make it more ergonomic and appropriate especially for the car, and it would be very interesting to design a line for bicycle baskets with this concept and motorcycle accesories , Also for roller/skates delivery. it could be cool to give the items an sporty look . Good luck!

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Photo of Amy
Team

Hi Magdalena Trucco ! Thanks for your feedback and well wishes! I appreciate the specificity :)

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Photo of Amy
Team

Lauren Ito , I tried submitting through the private channel and an error occurred. When I uploaded to the public channel last minute, I missed a couple of details. Can I go and quickly edit the submission? Or will this void the submission?

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