From Research to Launch: Designing a Corporate Catering Innovation Pilot

The brief: from insight to a working system

• Identify the corporate catering audience and build customer personas

• Understand what drives, and what blocks, reusable packaging behaviour

• Map the eater’s journey from order to return

• Design a system that works for eaters, corporate clients, operations staff and the environment

• Build the communications and materials needed to launch

• Set a realistic, de-risked path from pilot to a fully owned system

01 Researching people, market and competitors

We started with the people. We interviewed more than 20 potential users to understand their habits and hesitations around reusable packaging, mapped the competitor landscape, and ran social listening across Australia to track what people care about: health, convenience, sustainability. Then we reviewed competitor messaging, search and social presence to identify opportunity.

The research was then used by the client's product design agency and brand agency to inform product design, brand positioning and messaging.

02 Understanding the B2B eater's journey

A reusable lunchbox only works if people actually bring it back. So we mapped the full journey to find where the friction lives.

We built 4 personas to understand real behaviour: what people experience at each step and what would make them feel good about participating. Then we looked at the emotional side as much as the practical one. Does returning a container feel like pride or obligation? That question shaped everything we designed.

03 Designing for the catering audiences

We structured the system around 4 distinct audiences, each with its own goals and success measures. But one thing tied them together: communication has to work at every step, or the rest falls apart.

• Eaters need clarity on how the system works, a friction-free experience and a reason to feel good about taking part.

  Corporate clients need a communication toolkit they can roll out internally and a feedback loop that tells them the system is working.

  Operations staff need to track containers in and out, monitor return and loss rates and keep the unit economics honest.

  Impact needs to be measured from day one.

04 Making reusable work on the ground

People will only engage if it actually helps them, so we built a communication layer that guides eaters through the process, reinforces why participation matters, and ties every interaction back to the brand.

Alongside this, we delivered a corporate and employee communications toolkit, giving the client everything they needed to roll the system out internally, keep corporate clients informed, and ensure consistency across every touchpoint.

05 Building proof into the pilot

We built the measurement framework alongside the system, not after it, so the client could turn the launch into publishable, defensible evidence.

Hard operational measures:

• Single-use plastic avoided (by count and weight)

• Containers in circulation

• Scan-out and scan-in rates

• Return rate

• Loss and damage rate

Soft emotional measures:

• Employee sentiment about their company acting on waste

• A running library of content, testimonials, and evidence captured as the pilot runs

06 De-risking the path to scale

Any new system faces friction when it tries to grow: internal approvals, stakeholder buy-in, and corporate procurement can all slow momentum before the system has a chance to prove itself.

We sequenced the rollout so each stage builds proof for the next, validating demand with low-risk steps before committing to larger investment, and structuring the pilot so the evidence it generates answers the questions decision-makers will inevitably ask. The goal was simple: move forward with confidence, not assumptions.

Key takeaways for an innovation project

• Research earns the pilot. The customer and market research did not just inform messaging; it decided who the system was built for and what would make them come back.

• Design for the audience. Eaters, corporate clients, staff and impact each need their own plan, tied together by one consistent story.

• Map the emotional journey as well as logistics. How someone feels returning a container matters as much as the mechanics of the return.

• Build measurement in. Building measurement alongside the system is what turns a good idea into evidence a corporate buyer can act on.

• Address the risks upfront. Mapping awareness, buy-in and procurement risks early meant the client could design around them instead of reacting to them.

FAQs

How do you design a corporate catering pilot that people actually use?

Start with the people, not the container. We interviewed more than 20 target customers and mapped the full eater's journey, from order to return, before any design work began. The system was then built around 4 audiences rather than 1, because a pilot that satisfies the eater but breaks in the warehouse is not a system. Sequencing matters too: starting with off-the-shelf packaging validates demand before anyone invests in bespoke design.

How long does it take to go from idea to a launch-ready system?

The research and design phase runs in weeks rather than months, because the aim is a validated plan rather than a finished product. What takes longer is the market test that follows. We would rather compress the thinking and lengthen the learning than the other way around.

What does a project like this cost?

It depends on how much is already known. If you have customer research and a clear audience, the work is journey mapping, system design and measurement, and it is a defined scope. If you are starting from an idea, the research comes first and the investment is larger. We scope in stages so you can stop, or continue, once each stage has proved itself. Talk to us and we will tell you which stage you are actually at.

Do I need an agency for this, or can I do it in-house?

You can do plenty of it in-house, and founders close to their customers often should. Where teams typically come unstuck is the parts that need distance: honest risk evaluation, deciding what not to build, and designing measurement before launch rather than after. Those are hard to do on your own idea, which is usually the reason to bring someone in.

What does an agency add now that AI can do so much of the work?

AI can run the desk research, draft the personas and produce the materials, and we use it for exactly that. What it cannot do is sit in an interview and notice the thing the person did not say, decide which risk is worth taking, or hold the line on a decision that is commercially uncomfortable. The value has moved from producing the work to judging it, and to building the system that makes the output usable at all.

How do you get corporate clients to take a sustainability pilot seriously?

Treat it as their initiative, not your product. Corporate procurement moves slowly and involves layers of stakeholders, so we map the blockers early: low awareness, ESG teams treating catering spend as too small to matter, and long internal approvals. The mitigation is to frame the pilot as the client’s own ESG innovation, secure 1 flagship account, and have the evidence ready before the conversation starts.