There is only so much that I, a single human being, can do. RFLAD therefore is necessarily a collaborative endeavor, drawing on the generosity, enthusiasm, knowledge, and expertise of multiple people who have provided me with suggestions, advice, comments, etc.
ARTHUR'S CONSULTING Ltd. pointed out the importance of making sure that the discounted food items do not appear less attractive than the newest ones.
Comments from about three people I spoke with between October 2022 and April 2023 challenged my idea of incentivizing consumers to purchase food items with closer expirations (“one-day-old items”) rather than the newest ones through 1% discounts and spurred my decision to create the Refladdin portion of this project. Kazuyuki Takahashi, my mentor at a co-working facility, pointed out that a consumer might want a 5% discount to be incentivized enough to pick up and buy a grocery item. An anonymous visitor at my booth during Food Tech Week pointed out that incentives and benefits to the consumer that go beyond 1% discounts, such as loyalty points, would be necessary. Yukiko Mochizuki, a psychologist who co-teaches a skills-development group I attend, suggested that she would be incentivized to buy items at the grocery store that are discounted by as little as 5 yen. This comment reinforced the notion that the discount percentage to aim for is 5% (given that most items at a grocery store cost 100 yen or more, and therefore a 5% discount would enable a discount of 5 yen or more on most grocery items).
An article from Impact Entrepreneur inspired the idea of linking the Cause Selection Platform to a marketplace of verified social outcomes such as OutcomesX.