Restaurant Surplus Donation Handoff
Design an operations flow that helps restaurants offer safe surplus food to verified community organizations before it expires.
The brief
Understand the problem
Background
Restaurants may have safe food left after service, while community organizations have limited storage, transport, and receiving hours. A donation succeeds only when quantity, allergens, temperature, and pickup responsibility are clear.
User context
Luis closes a hotel kitchen at 22:00 with thirty packaged meals. A partner organization can collect some foods tonight but lacks refrigerated transport.
Product problem
The platform must match usable surplus with verified capacity quickly, without pressuring organizations to accept unsafe or unsuitable items.
Objective
Create offer creation, recipient matching, pickup handoff, and traceability for same-day food donation.
What to design
Define the experience
Required experience
- Fast surplus listing
- Eligibility and recipient matching
- Pickup coordination
- Handoff record
Screens and states
- Kitchen surplus dashboard
- Donation offer form
- Partner match
- Pickup status
- Handoff receipt
Core user flow
Follow the critical path
- 01
Luis records food type, quantity, allergens, and safe window
- 02
Eligible organizations receive the offer
- 03
One accepts part of it and names a driver
- 04
Both parties confirm temperature and quantity at pickup
Product rules
Requirements and constraints
Requirements
- Capture preparation time, storage, allergens, and use-by window
- Verify recipient organization and capacity
- Allow partial acceptance
- Record chain of custody and rejected quantities
- Provide a safe disposal outcome when no match exists
Constraints
- Local food donation rules differ
- Kitchen staff have minutes to complete the listing
- Pickup partners may lose connectivity
Reality check
States worth considering
Ready-to-use content
Mock data
Use this content to test hierarchy and realistic data states. You can expand it when the concept needs more depth.
Donation offer
- Vegetable rice boxes, 18 portions
- Prepared 19:40, chilled at 20:15
- Contains soy
- Collect before 23:10
- Community Table can accept 12 portions
Finish line
What to deliver
- Five tablet-first screens
- A concise handoff checklist for donor and recipient
If you want more
Optional extensions
Optional direction
Visual resources
Use these as a starting constraint if you want one. They are not part of the required solution.