ReThink Potato – Methods, processes and background of unconventional potato stalk materials as discovered by Innovation course group ReThink Food I

Abstract

The design program at Metropolia University of Applied sciences has a time-honoured tradition known as the third-year innovation course. All the design majors are assigned a design challenge to solve in group whose members are chosen randomly. Sustainable development is a megatrend that has been the overarching theme of innovation courses in several assignments over the years. The utilisation of the food industry´s production waste was one of the themes of the innovation course in 2021. In the ReThinking Food assignment, students had to design a service or product concept that utilises the waste generated as a side stream of the food industry. Textile design student Riikka Laaksoharju, interior architecture student Linde Lemaire and clothing student Antti Salmi formed one of the ReThinking Food challenge student groups. Their challenge was to rethink potato. Potato cultivation produces a lot of biowaste, especially in the form of the green above-ground growth of potatoes. How could this material be used in the future? ReThink Potato publication encourages consumers and the food industry to further process the green parts of the potato to make paper- or colour dyes, or use it as a replacement for plastic, for example.