The Future of Cooking

Reimagining our relationship with food.
of cooking
The future

The future of cooking
hello@designit.com

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The way we cook, eat, buy and store our food
is undergoing radical change.
Emerging technologies, from the Internet of Things
to augmented reality, present us with endless
possibilities to improve the way we produce and
cook our food. But without good design, these will
only ever be possibilities. To bring this technology
into the homes – and the hands – of everyday
people, it has to be tailored into people-centred
products and services.
And that’s where Designit comes in.

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OS
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GIY: Grow it yourself
Recycling energy
Cleaning is boring
The new standard
Better, not bigger
Closing the circle
Automated cooking
Function is beauty
Eating insects
Shelve the cookbooks
Conclusion
Sources
General storage
Cleaning assistant
Energy recycling
Designed for all
Reimagined cookware
Lifecycle of the frying pan
Utensils in passive mode
Recipe playlist
Smart pot
Home-grown
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OPPORTUNITY SPACES
IDEA CATALOGUE
#I
Preface
Change drivers

FUTURE OF COOKING - CHANGE DRIVERS
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Energy
We urgently need to change the way we consume
and manage our energy resources. Traditional
resources such as fossil fuels are seriously harming
our planet, and are, besides, finite resources.
Alternative energy will relieve the pressure to reduce
consumption, and offer new opportunities to reduce
costs, decentralise energy production, and more.
Population explosion
By 2050, the world’s population is expected to
reach 9.1 billion people and according to the United
Nations, food production will need to rise by 70% to
meet an increasing demand. People all around the
globe will be forced to change what and how they
eat. Red meat production will decrease, and insects
and algae will be a new big food source, while water
is set to become the ‘oil of the future’.
Materials
Products are, ultimately, resources that should either
be used to make new products, or be returned to
the biological ecosystem. When we throw out
used, worn-out products, not only do we waste
the potential to re-use those materials, but in doing
so we create further problems, filling up landfills or
releasing toxic fumes when burnt.
Change
drivers
These are the key areas that we believe will
play a vital role in shaping the future of cooking:

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Changing eating habits
Since the 1980’s the average time spent on cooking
in the UK has more than halved, and this is believed
to be indicative for global behaviour. Consumers are
looking for ways that enable them to live healthy
lives despite their busy schedules. However, this
is accompanied by an ‘all-in’ cooking behaviour,
where entire evenings or even days are devoted to
cooking high-quality meals.
Urbanisation
For the first time in history, more people live in cities
than in the countryside. For most city dwellers,
small-space living is a necessary reality, and as
population – and urbanisation – increases, space
will come at an ever increasing premium.
Food waste
Despite becoming a hot topic in recent years, food
waste continues to be a massive challenge on a
global scale. We produce an excessive amount of
food; the average person throws away 50 kg of food
every year. And instead of composting it, to recover
some some of the nutrients and energy, it often ends
up on the landfill, taking up space and giving off
harmful greenhouse gases.
Food distribution
Consumers are becoming increasingly conscious
of where their food comes from, and how it is
produced. People are demanding more quality,
transparency, convenience, and less packaging
from their supermarkets.
Automation
Technology will enable us to automate more
processes than ever, with huge advancements
in artificial intelligence and machine motor skills.
Sensors can connect appliances to the Internet of
Things, creating a smarter kitchen, that could learn
over time and eventually take over tasks.
Rediscovering knowledge
With home-cooking in decline, consumers are losing
basic cooking skills. This means that we increasingly
need guidance and recommendations for both
cooking and storing our food. Some consumers are
turning back to traditional, low-tech solutions for
storing and preserving food.
Home-growing
As consumers become ever more discerning
about food production and distribution, home-
growing is an increasingly popular alternative. New
approaches to growing, from communal gardens
to home hydroponics, will enable more people
to grow their own herbs and vegetables, or even
algaes and bugs.

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Opportunity
spaces
These are gaps that we’ve spotted in existing
products and services, representing a want or need.
OS

FUTURE OF COOKING – OPPORTUNITY SPACES
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GIY: Grow
it yourself
How might we make GIY
part of people’s diets,
homes, and lifestyle?
Locally-sourced produce is growing in demand, and the natural
progression from this is the most local you can get: home-grown!
Mini-gardens at home and communal gardens will enable people
to grow their own herbs, algae and vegetables. Long supply chains
can be reduced and the average person will be able to discover
new ingredients. But GIY won’t only be for those blessed with
green fingers. Future growing solutions will need to be practical,
realistic and convenient in order to be widely appealing. Several
types of home growing systems are marketed to consumers,
but which system will become their first choice?
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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Recycling
energy
How might we put waste
energy from the kitchen
to good use?
We use and produce all kinds of energy when we cook, and
a lot of this goes to waste. Think of the steam from your kettle,
the water running down the drain, even the kinetic energy as
you move around the kitchen. All this ‘waste’ energy could
be recycled or harvested to power other cooking processes,
charge your devices, or even go back to the grid as electricity.
With people becoming ever more energy conscious – for both
the environmental and economical benefits – there’s an open
opportunity to bring alternate energy into regular people’s
homes – and hands.
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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“One day, your morning cup
of coffee could actually be
all you need to recharge
not only yourself, but your
smartphone too.”
LULU CHANG ON DIGITALTRENDS.COM,
ABOUT SPACE 10 PROJECT “HEAT HARVEST”

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How might we integrate
cleaning into the
cooking process?
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE
When thinking about how to improve the cooking experience,
we tend to overlook the cleaning part. Let’s face it, nobody
likes to clean. But this is precisely why improvements in this
area would have such a huge impact. And there are plenty of
possibilities to make the cleaning process easier; the last big
innovation was the dishwasher (and we’re talking nearly
a hundred years ago). Instead of a system of cooking first,
then cleaning, it could be interesting to integrate cleaning into
the cooking process, with a smarter, more dynamic dishwasher,
an evolved sink, or another tool.
Cleaning
is boring

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“Here’s how many times I saw
anything about keeping the kitchen
clean in all the future-home videos
I’ve watched: Not once.”
ROSE EVELETH, PRODUCER, DESIGNER
WRITER AND ANIMATOR FROM BROOKLYN
PHOTO BY JON FUCHS - WWW.JONFUCHSPHOTOGRAPHY.COM

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The new
standard
How might we create the new
standard for commonly used
kitchen tools?
We all have tools we use everyday. In fact, we pretty much rely on
them, but still they’re far from perfect. Messy, fiddly, and – at least
in our case – melted. These might be the standard tools, but that
doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Technology can
help us make the new standard, by either refining functionality,
or extending it. This could be digital, or it could be ‘analogue’ –
just as long as it meets a real need, not just added for the novelty.
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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How might we improve
space efﬁciency in
the kitchen without
sacriﬁcing functionality?
Better,
not bigger
Who doesn’t want a bigger kitchen? But with more and more of
us congregating to cities – and space at a premium – our kitchens
are only getting smaller. But the kitchen of the future doesn’t need
to get bigger, it just needs to be more space efficient. There’s a
huge opportunity for appliances and equipment that save space,
without sacrificing functionality. This could mean products that
are easier to store and organise. Or it could mean extending, or
bundling, the function of our tools and appliances, so we need
less stuff to begin with.
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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How might we design
products which ﬁt into
a circular production
eco-system?
Closing
the circle
An intelligent way of handling our resources is essential for
the future of our societies and businesses. Besides both
environmental and economical benefits, there’s also the plain
truth that we simply can’t consume more than the finite supply.
Looking forward, we need to go above and beyond recycling.
The opportunity here is to move from a linear production
system to a circular one, like Cradle to Cradle. It’s based on
the principle of an ideal circular economy, where materials are
used safely, and potentially infinitely, in cycles. This means that
products will made from recycled materials, with parts that are
easily removable, replaceable, and of course recyclable.
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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Automated
cooking
How might we support
people in their modern
lifestyle with the perfect
degree of automation?
The dream of the autonomous kitchen isn’t new, and we’ve
seen our fair share of both futuristic concepts and realised
products. Where we really see the opportunity is in finding that
sweet spot between manual and autonomous. It’s pretty clear
fully autonomous cooking isn’t the optimal solution – in fact
restaurants and takeaways already have that covered. Because
cooking is, ultimately, an intrinsically personal, human experience.
The dream is to relieve humans of the time-consuming, boring
bits, so they can concentrate on the personal bits. So while some
processes will have a high degree of automation, others will have
a low degree of automation.
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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How might we take inspiration
from ‘extreme users’ to design
the best possible product?
‘Form follows function’ is a hollow quote these days.
The question is: How would products look if the focus was truly,
fully, on functionality? Looking ahead, perhaps functionality
alone could be the appealing factor, not aesthetics. One
approach is to look at professional equipment and identify
solutions that could transfer to a domestic kitchen. Another
could be taking a universal design approach. What is it that really
makes this product work? Studying the ‘extreme users’ could
lead us to think differently on how we design for the many.
Function
is beauty
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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“Overthinking kitchen
equipment isn’t good. The
simplest design is the best.”
THOMAS GARLAND, PROFESSIONAL CHEF IN COPENHAGEN

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Eating
insects
How might we introduce
alternative foods such as
insects into the Western diet
– to eat and to grow?
The concept of eating insects isn’t new at all. On a global scale,
these protein-packed bad boys have been an important part of
the diet for millennia. Really, Western cultures are just late to adopt
this food trend. But they’re not just good for you, they’re good for
the environment. The amount of red meat we consume in the West
is an ‘environmental nightmare’, and as population increases,
it’s simply unsustainable. Eating insects isn’t so much a trend,
as a necessity. The opportunity lies in making insects socially
acceptable in the West, to eat and to grow.
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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“It’s about a potential new
Western culture of insect eating
and breeding. It’s about making
people aware that there is a great
variety of food on our planet that
we rarely consider.”
“A KIT TO GROW BUGS AT HOME, TO EAT”,
ARTICLE ON FASTCOMPANY

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How might we provide intuitive
assistance in the kitchen?
People are getting more adventurous in the kitchen, with new
ingredients, new techniques, and new equipment … but we need
help. New technology, from cognitive computing to augmented
reality, has the potential to change the landscape of kitchen, with
custom, intuitive, and seamless assistance. This could be simple
analogue, or part of a digital infrastructure. Some products could
even be fully automated, but the key thing here is the user is still
in charge of cooking. There’s a fine line between helping and, well,
being annoying. The ideal assistance has a human ‘intuitive’ quality
that knows what information to deliver, and when.
Shelve the
cookbooks
BACKGROUND
CHALLENGE

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Idea
catalogue
These are some of our initial
ideas for future concepts.
#I

FUTURE OF COOKING - IDEA CATALOGUE
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General storage
Whenever we’re unsure about how to store food, we usually just seal it and stick it in the fridge.
The thing is, a lot of our food doesn’t actually benefit from that treatment, but it goes to show how
much we rely on the fridge as our central storage unit. We imagine something different, that brings
together all different types of storage into one. It could be a modular system, made up of different
containers, each with different storage settings – from temperature, to light, to ventilation –
automatically adjusted according to the contents. Containers could even be taken out and about,
to keep food cold throughout the day, then warming themselves up when you’re ready to eat.
#1

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Cleaning assistant
We all know cleaning up as we go is best, but in practice it takes a lot of discipline and effort.
The way we wash our things today hasn’t evolved much in the last hundred years, and still isn’t
optimal. Right now it’s either put it in the dishwasher or wash it completely by hand. We want
to change how our cleaning areas look, even change the whole cleaning process, to make it
easier and faster to do the dishes. We imagine a kind of a ‘car wash’ for your dishes, combining
the ease of the dishwasher, and the immediacy of hand-washing.
#2

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Energy recycling
Ambient thermal and kinetic energy could be harvested to power other processes in the
kitchen, charge devices, or even be returned to the grid as electricity. Instead of of an ugly,
technical box, we could turn it into a decorative, interactive element in the home. Incorporating
gamification, making the collection of energy a challenge in itself, could make recycling energy
fun and raise awareness around the topic.
#3

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Designed for all
‘Extreme users’ have very specific needs, and when designing to meet them, we often uncover
new approaches that a broader audience can benefit from too. For example, draining a large
pot of hot water isn’t just a hassle for a lot of people, it’s a hazard. We’d like to design creative
solutions to improve this, along with other common processes in the kitchen.
#4

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Reimagined cookware
We’d like to create a range of cookware that saves space, while extending functionality. With
removable, interchangeable handles, pots and pans would be easier to stack and store, and
could even be suitable for putting in the oven or the fridge. Besides different handles for frying
and boiling, special handles could extend the pot’s functionality further – from a handle with
a scale function, to adapted handles for people with arthritis.
#5

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Lifecycle of the frying pan
Using our contacts at EPEA, the scientific institute of cradle to cradle, we’d like to explore how
a frying pan could be designed as part of a circular production system. Removable handles are
a step in the right direction for design for disassembly, but how do we make sure each bit of the
pan can go back into either the technical or biological cycles? One idea could be to develop a
biodegradable, even edible, non-stick coating, to be scraped off and reapplied as necessary.
#6

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Utensils in passive mode
Sometimes plastic utensils just feel like a downright pain – when they’re not dripping all over
your clean surfaces, they’re melting onto the frying pan! We want to make these tools more
practical in their ‘passive mode’. How about adding a suction cup to the end of a spatula or
spoon? That way, a spoon covered in sauce could be stuck over the sink, or even over the
stove so that drips fall back into the pot.
#7

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Recipe playlist
We imagine an app that could give you personalised recipes, with intuitive, human-feeling
suggestions enabled by cognitive computing. The suggestions would be based on what
ingredients you have to hand, with data collected from sensors in your fridge, cupboards, even
your (micro) garden. The service could respond to real-time information, such as your location,
the weather, or even extrapolate from your calendar to see how much time you might have.
With an understanding of your skill level and taste profile, the service can refine its suggestions,
or even broaden them to introduce you to new things based on recipes you loved.
#8

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Smart pot
We’d like to create a pot that can self-regulate the stove temperature, keeping the contents
boiling – but never boiling over. This could be more of an analogue solution, or could be part of
a wider digital infrastructure. The pot could also incorporate a self-stirring function, to prevent
your dinner catching on the bottom of the pan, while an ‘air guard’ could prevent the pot’s
contents from splattering all over the stove top.
#9

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Home-grown
The idea of producing your own food is becoming increasingly popular. But for idea to become
reality, we have to design products that people would genuinely, actively want in their homes
and kitchens. It could be an autonomous vegetable growing system. It could be a lamp that
can be used to grow micro-algae. Or a box specifically for growing edible insects. Whatever
we do, it has to appeal to the general public, taking into account time and space constraints,
and of course good looks!
#10

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The need for change is right in front of us, but how
do we turn our shifting needs into opportunity?
For sure, we’ll be incorporating new tech-enabled
and digitally-driven solutions into the kitchen of
the future, but how exactly will we bring these
into your regular, family kitchen?
People need technology that is wrapped around
them – their needs, their lives – not the other way
around. Designing the future of cooking is about
making products that are sustainable, high-quality
and available for everyone.

Sources
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In the course of our research, we collected all kinds of sources – in-house
trend research, future kitchen concepts, desktop research, interviews, and
event shows. We didn’t want to give you a crazy long reading list; instead
here’s an introduction to some of the topics we found the most interesting.

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Why the “kitchen of the future” always fails us
Search word: eater future kitchen
IKEA / IDEO future kitchen concept
Search word: ikea future kitchen concept 2025
Space 10 - a future living lab sponsored by IKEA
Search word: space10 copenhagen
IBM Watson - the cognitive computing chef
Search word: chef watson
Miele 2063
Search word: miele future kitchen concept 2063
Rabobank
Search word: rabobank, innovation, shape
Innit - the connected kitchen
Search word: innit kitchen
Ento - the art of eating insects
Search word: ento, insects
No Tech or Low Tech magazine
Search word: notech/lowtech magazine
IKEA people and planet positive strategy
Search word: ikea positive
How the future looked like in 1956
Search word: 1956 designing the future
The smart kitchen summit
Search word: kitchen summit
Philips Microbial Home Concept
Search word: peter gal microbial home

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