Playfully combating food waste
21 Mar 2025
From left to right: Jana Böhmert, Stefanie Baumgart, Sophie Ritter and Luisa Kulla received a special prize in the "Rethinking consumption" competition for their creative approach to teaching sustainable competences. Photo: Private
Stefanie Baumgart, Jana Böhmert, Luisa Kulla and Sophie Ritter have once again been honoured with an award. The online escape room they developed, which is dedicated to the topic of food waste, was awarded a special prize in the competition "Rethinking Consumption" on the occasion of World Home Economics Day 2025 on 21 March. This day of action was initiated by the International Federation for Home Economics (IFHE), a globally recognised non-governmental organisation with consultative status at the United Nations. In December 2024, the Master's students had already received the ELVe Young Talent Award from the Research Centre for Nutrition, Food and Sustainable Supply Systems at Fulda University of Applied Sciences for their work.
Background: Throwaway society
Wasting less food is highly relevant. Too much food still ends up in the bin. This is not only a sign of a lack of appreciation, but also has a negative impact on the climate due to unnecessarily produced greenhouse gases. According to the Federal Statistical Office, around 11 million tonnes of food were thrown away in Germany in 2020, which is around 78 kilograms per capita. Private budgets are the main contributors to this waste.
Interactive approach: the online escape room
The four award winners asked themselves the question: What can each and every individual do to promote responsible consumption? As experience has shown that mere knowledge is insufficient to support sustainable behaviour, they developed an interactive online escape room. Using puzzles, participants can playfully work their way towards a sustainable approach to food. One task, for example, involves putting food in a fridge and deciding what belongs in the fridge in the first place.
Target group and implementation
The online escape room is primarily aimed at students and is therefore deliberately set in a university environment. "This specific focus should make it easier to identify with the topic and make what has been learnt directly applicable in everyday life," says the group. However, they also believe that students can benefit from the application.
Results of the project study
Is such a specific escape room really effective? The prizewinners were unable to present representative results due to the small number of participants. Nevertheless, their project provides valuable evidence that an online escape room has the potential to both impart knowledge and support behavioural changes and is certainly suitable for supporting more sustainable behaviour in dealing with food.
If you would like to try out the Online Escape Room, you can do so free of charge.