The document provides a summary of research conducted by Team Ampersand to explore college students' attitudes towards healthy eating and propose solutions. The key insights were that students' need for convenience often conflicts with desires for healthier, varied food, and their desire to feel connected to simpler food production conflicts with urban realities. The recommended solutions were a Whole Foods Mobile Market and website. The market would bring local, healthy food conveniently to students, while the website would enable community, education, and locating the market.

1. AMPERSAND | WHOLE FOODS
FINAL REPORT
ZENA ADHAMI
MATTHEW BOWERS
TAN-YA GERRODETTE
SHUYA “APRIL” HE

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
1_Executive summary
2_Project background
• Objectives
• Key questions
• Participants profile
3_Research approach
4_Key insights
5_Areas of opportunity
6_Conclusion / Recommended solutions

3. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

4. PROJECT BACKGROUND & RESEARCH APPROACH
Whole Foods Market is interested in bringing a healthy lifestyle, with an
emphasis on healthy eating, to US college students.
Team Ampersand interviewed nineteen undergrad and grad students
ranging in age from 19 to 35 in the San Francisco Bay Area. In addition
to the interview, we conducted a collage activity with them to learn more
about their motivations and ideas about food and health.
From this data, we formulated insights that led us to our final concepts.

5. INSIGHTS
Our first key insight is that a student's primary need for convenience
often conflicts with a desire for food that is healthier, varied, and/or local.
Secondly, we found that students' desire to feel connected to smaller,
simpler methods of food production, such as was practiced in the past,
conflicts with the reality of being modern urban dwellers.

6. INSIGHTS: PERSONAS
We identified four personas in the course of our research:
HIPSTER HUNTERS value CONVENIENT POLITICIANS are
the experience of discovering well versed in contemporary
specialized and obscure food politics and aspire to live
items and may lose interest according to certain ideals but
when something becomes too will ultimately compromise to
mainstream. go with what is convenient.
RUSTIC GOURMETS have a CREATURES OF HABIT are
sophisticated palate while comforted by routines and a
valuing a connection to the nostalgia for the way things
land and natural methods of were when they were growing
food production. up.

7. CONCEPTS
We see the main area of opportunity as providing a convenient way
for students to eat healthier. The concept should appeal to students
emotionally to keep them interested. It should take into account their
needs and desires. It should address student desire to indulge while eating
healthy, experience a sense of variety, and be connected to a sense of
place.
Our recommendation is an integrated system of a Whole Foods Mobile
Market and Website. The Mobile Market will bring the farmer's market
experience of fresh, local, healthy food directly to time-strapped students,
and the Website will be a tool for community, education, and connection.

8. PROJECT BACKGROUND

9. OBJECTIVE
We wanted to explore the attitudes and behaviors of college students
towards healthy eating, see where the organic grocery Whole Foods fit into
the picture, and propose a fresh solution to address the insights that we
uncovered in our research.
We felt that our target audience of college students aged 19 to 35 was
important to research because of their presumed roles as future leaders.
With higher education, they are more likely to attain positions of influence,
be role models and be prominent members of their communities. Targeting
this population could have a significant trickle-down effect as concerns
about health care costs associated with diet-related illnesses skyrocket.

10. KEY QUESTIONS
We formulated four key questions that served as the basis of our
research.
1) In addition to budget, what factors determine what foods students eat
and buy, and what role does cultural background play in determining these
habits?
2) How do students define healthy eating and lifestyle and where do they
get their information from?
3) What prompted any drastic changes to students' wellness habits?
4) How do food trends start and disseminate among students?

11. PARTICIPANTS PROFILE
Our participants ranged in age from 19 to 35 and included undergrads and
grad students in the SF Bay Area.
GIO, 27 MARISSA, 29 COURTNEY, 19 DANA, 27 EMILY, 19 TAYLOR, 29
GRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT UNDERGRAD STUDENT UNDERGRAD STUDENT UNDERGRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT
REEM, 26 JOSH, 26 RACHEL, 29
GRAD STUDENT UNDERGRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT
ROBIN, 22 ROBERT, 35 NEIL, 35 MARINA, 30 BO, 25 KEVIN, 32
UNDERGRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT GRAD STUDENT

12. RESEARCH APPROACH

13. Team Ampersand took a diversified approach to our research on the health
habits of college students, trying out several different methods before
settling on our final tools. In addition to the final main collage activity and
in-person interview, we set up an online food journal on a Facebook page,
shadowed students while they shopped at Whole Foods, watched students
eating, conducted refrigerator inspections, set up a Polyvore collection with
the intention of doing Skype interviews and online collages, interviewed a
college cafe manager and reached out to a New York Times food writer.

14. The purpose of the collage activity and interview was to gather some
data about what kinds of foods students ate on a regular basis and what
they considered healthy and unhealthy. The collage activity, which was done
before the interview, also served as a good starting point for a discussion
of student habits since it got respondents thinking about why they made
certain decisions.
We interviewed people in their homes as well as in public dining places.

15. For our collage
activity we tried to
choose a variety
of images that
were ambiguous
enough to appeal
to different people's
interpretations. For
example, we used
different images
of salads, a regular
green salad and a
less healthy salad
with dressing. Here is
a graph showing the
foods that respondents
talked about the
most and what they
considered healthy. Reliability
Rating

16. Once we finished the interviews, we wrote quotes and findings on Post-it
notes and created an immersive space. We then clustered our findings into
similar categories and from those groupings determined our key insights.

17. KEY INSIGHTS

18. • A student's primary need for convenience often conflicts with a desire
for food that is healthier, varied, and/or local.
• Students' desire to feel connected to smaller, simpler methods of food
production and packaging, such as was practiced in the past, conflicts with
the reality of being modern urban dwellers.

19. EXPLORATION
SLOW FOOD CONVENIENT
NOSTALGIA

20. We charted these insights into a model showing the conflict between
convenience and slow food, exploration and nostalgia.
We identified four personas in the course of our research that inhabited
different parts of our model:
CONVENIENT POLITICIANS are well versed in contemporary food
politics and aspire to live according to certain ideals but will ultimately
compromise to go with what is convenient.
RUSTIC GOURMETS have a sophisticated palate while valuing a
connection to the land and natural methods of food production.
HIPSTER HUNTERS value the experience of discovering specialized
and obscure items and may lose interest when something becomes too
mainstream.
CREATURES OF HABIT are comforted by routines and a nostalgia for the
way things were when they were growing up.

21. EXPLORATION
Hipster Hunter Convenient Politician
SLOW FOOD CONVENIENT
Rustic Gourmet Creatures of Habit
NOSTALGIA

22. Regardless of differences in students' food preferences, all of them
universally expressed that convenience was the most important factor in
determining what, where and how they ate. Everyone talked about being
constrained by time and location and would often end up eating the same
few things week after week, which created boredom and lack of pleasure
in eating. Budget restriction was a significant factor but not as much as a
lack of time. Some would desire to eat differently and were conscious of
compromising because of a lack of time.

23. Many students expressed a desire to eat healthier than they do and
some expressed guilt that they do not eat as healthy as they know that
they should while they are in school. A correlation was made between this
and their time restriction. One respondent observed, "The less time I
have, the less healthy I eat” and another said “Being in college made me
unhealthy.”
Healthy food was variably defned as fresh, unprocessed, local, balanced,
a variety of foods, moderate portion sizes, and sustainably produced.

24. Students would turn on a brand as it got bigger as they perceived the
company as being more interested in moving product than paying attention
to the nutritional content and quality of the product. Foods that were local
and came from smaller producers were thought to be more nutritious.
One respondent said “The relationship between food and place is more
important than organic.” Another said “I never make it to the farmer's
market because it's out of my way. I like it in theory though.”

25. Similarly, students expressed preferences for foods that were not
prepared in bulk, as bulk implied a lack of attention to quality and
nutritional content. Food preferences included lunches prepared in cafes as
well as artisanal packaged products. The less packaging something had,
the more it was perceived to be natural and less processed.

26. Students will treat themselves and rationalize eating something that
appeals to them emotionally even though they think it is unhealthy. For
example, some respondents considered beer and chocolate to be healthy
because it made them happy, and "happy is healthy."

27. AREAS OF OPPORTUNITY

28. Key areas of opportunity lie in providing a way for students to obtain “slow
food” quickly and conveniently. It should appeal to their sense of nostalgia
while offering something new. It should appeal to their emotional as well as
rational sides. The concept should meet student desire to feel a sense of
indulgence, experience a sense of variety and surprise as well as meet their
desire to be connected to a sense of place. As future leaders, there should
be an educational opportunity for them.

29. EXPLORATION
SLOW FOOD CONVENIENT
NOSTALGIA

30. CONCLUSIONS/
RECOMMENDED SOLUTIONS

31. Our first recommended solution is a Whole Foods Mobile Market. A
clean running biodiesel vehicle, the Mobile Market will bring the fun of the
farmers market experience directly to time-strapped students. In addition
to providing healthy meals from seasonal ingredients, it will feature
produce and products from a rotating roster of local farms. First and
foremost, it will be convenient, catering to all students regardless of their
other preferences. It will satisfy student desire for sustainably produced,
local, and healthy foods. It will provide a variety of changing products to
keep students interested and coming back as well as have some consistent
inventory for those who prefer routine. It will satisfy student desire to
indulge and treat themselves, but to feel good about doing it. The format
of the vehicle will tap into the current vogue for high-end food trucks as
well as a nostalgia for vehicles such as ice cream trucks. It will be an
ambassador for Whole Foods to connect with a community beyond its few
store locations. To differentiate it from the stores, it will be a lab of sorts,
showcasing vendors and farms that Whole Foods is considering featuring in
its stores.

32. The Mobile Market will have a companion website. The site will be a tool
for connection, education, and community. Through the site, students will
be able to locate the truck and see its schedule as it moves around the city.
They will be able to learn about featured products, the farms they come
from, and how to maintain a balanced diet that is good for them and the
planet. They will be able to provide feedback about the items featured on
the truck, creating a sense of ownership and empowerment. Students will
be able to create a profile where they will be able to design a healthy diet.
The site will make suggestions for the student and help them learn in a way
that is interactive, hip, and engaging.
+
WHOLE FOODS MOBILE MARKET MOBILE MARKET WEBSITE

33. Through the Mobile Market and Website, Whole Foods will have the
opportunity to improve student health and wellness while enhancing its
position as a company connecting small farms to urbanites.

34. PARTNERSHIPS WITH LOCAL FARMS
LOCAL PRODUCTS CONNECTION TO
COMMUNITY
FARMERS MARKET COMMUNITY AND
EXPERIENCE EDUCATION
- CONVENIENT - MENU BUILDING
- LOCAL FARM FRESH - FARM INFORMATION
- HEALTHY - FEEDBACK
- A TREAT - SCHEDULE / LOCATION

35. Another concept we considered is an interactive vending machine.
As well as providing healthy farm fresh food, the act of getting the food
will include a gesture that mimics the act of picking fruit. The machine
will have educational components like a live video stream connecting the
produce to the farm it came from.

36. END