Bethany Paquette
Bethany is a bubbly multi-device digital device Design Lead, living and working in beautiful Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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Zera Food Recycler

Zera™ Food Recycler 

UI/UX Design and Development from start to finish, on both iOS and Android

My work with Zera ranks as the second most successful enterprise Indiegogo campaign in history, selling out within 4 hours, achieved over 800% of Indeigogo funding goal, receiving multiple international awards, and featured on Fast Company, CNET, Engadget, Mashable, and CES Best of Innovation

Overview

The Zera Food Recycler is designed to fit seamlessly into your kitchen and make the most of your food — turning today's food scraps into tomorrow's ready-to-use, homemade fertilizer.

Based on the research findings of the Global Initiative on Food Loss and Waste Reduction of the United Nations, roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year — approximately 1.3 billion tons — gets lost or wasted. 

Zera can recycle 95% of a typical family’s household food waste by using oxygen, moisture, heat, and agitation to speed decomposition of a week's worth of food scraps within 24 hours**. The additive provides the "brown" material necessary for the decomposition process. The output of Zera is a ready-to-use, homemade fertilizer that can be used on lawns and gardens. It appears similar to coffee grounds, is dry, and spreads easily.

**Based on estimated 3.5 kg weekly household food waste for average U.S. family.

My Role

I was responsible for designing the user interface, creating interactive prototypes, ensuring the experience was consistent across other Whirlpool connected products, overseeing and approving international software development of UI/UX visuals, ensuring the technical and interactive solution supported the experience requirements, and providing design recommendations based on experience audit results.

Press

  • FAST COMPANY | "This Kitchen Gadget Turns Food Waste Into Fertilizer In Just A Day"

  • ENGADGET | "Whirlpool's Zera Food Recycler turns food scraps into fertilizer"

  • CNET | "Turn your food waste into fertilizer in a day with Zera"

  • MASHABLE | "This food recycler eliminates the grossest part of composting"

  • 1.25M+ FACEBOOK VIEWS | "Zera Food Recycler: The indoor recycler can convert 95% of food waste into fertilizer.”

“Organic waste is the second highest component of landfills, which are the largest source of methane emissions.”
— The Environmental Food Crisis: The Environment’s Role in Averting Future Food Crises, United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP)
 
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Lives in your kitchen and in your pocket.

Once you connect Zera to Wi-Fi, you can control it from anywhere. Adjust your preferences from the app, and Zera adjusts quickly back at home.

  • Start and pause the device remotely

  • Be notified when the cycle is complete and when the filter needs replacing

  • Activate the control and lid locks with a single button

  • Get up-to-the minute progress status from anywhere

  • Watch informational DIY videos

  • Unlock achievement rewards for recycling

Less time setting up.
Less time to compost.

The emphasis on household environmentalism shifts from being something that’s “nice to do” to something that demands serious participation in the fight to reduce everyday waste in our nation. Because every inventive idea should have its shot, and every product should demonstrate a bias for simplicity, utility, and resourcefulness.

 

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Potential Outcomes

We try our best to recycle plastic and paper, but what’s stopping us from recycling food waste?

We often treat our natural environment as if it were infinitely resilient. We sometimes spend our days as if we had all the time in the world. We discard our things as if there will always be more. We expend our energy on frivolous activities as if there will always be time for the important things later. On a professional level, we sometimes let our talents lie fallow as if there will always be someone else to take up the slack. 

The emphasis on environmentalism shifts from being something that’s “nice to do” to something that demands serious participation in the fight to save beautiful and wild places, and to help reverse the steep decline in the overall environmental health of our planet. Because every inventive idea should have its shot, and every product should demonstrates a bias for simplicity and utility. 

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All together now: Awards and Accolades

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  • CES Awards (2017)

    • CES Best of Innovation Award Honoree
      (Eco-Design and Sustainable Technologies Category)

    • CES Innovations Award Honoree
      (Tech For A Better World and Home Appliances Categories)

    • EFTM CES Best Appliance (Australian)

  • Chicago PRSA Skyline Award of Excellence
    (Marketing Consumer Products: Non-Packaged Goods category)

  • Engadget | Best of CES Award

  • Cannes Lions Creativity Festival | Innovation Award Finalist

  • Design to Improve Life | INDEX 2017 Finalist

If I looked overly excited to have this award, it's because I was.

If I looked overly excited to have this award, it's because I was.

So many thanks

Zera is a product of WLabs, an innovation brand that enables Whirlpool Corporation to extend and expand its reach outside its core, by introducing new products in spaces unknown to Whirlpool Corporation. In other words, WLabs acts as a startup inside a Fortune 500 company. The Zera device lives within the Whirlpool app and was completed in wonderful collaboration with the incredibly hard work and passion of hundreds of engineers, developers, and designers of every concentration. My everyday work with Zera was leading UI and development, and couldn't have been done without Melanie Riley, Kevin Maenle, Shantanu Dhond and his team in Pune, India, and my hilarious manager, Richard Hughes.