Duration
3 months (2021)
Role
Lead Researcher
Tools
Paper, Eyetracker, Google Workspace apps
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Under A Non-disclosure Agreement
Some of the details in this case study may be vague to protect the client's intellectual property.
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It wasn’t just about carrots or chicken breast. It was about the little, often invisible decisions shoppers make in-store, or when they pick pre-packed spinach instead of loose leaves, when they linger by the fish counter but end up with frozen fillets, or when they loop around the wet market before walking into a supermarket anyway.
Challenge
Fresh food shopping looks simple from the outside. In practice, it's a sequence of small, often invisible decisions - pre-packed spinach versus loose leaves, lingering at the fish counter then ending up with frozen fillets, looping through the wet market before walking into the supermarket anyway.
FairPrice wanted to understand the blind spots. The friction. The irrational choices. And from there, build a clearer picture of how to make fresh food feel easier, smarter, and genuinely worth buying.
Walking alongside, not just asking
We spent time watching, listening, walking alongside shoppers.
- We shadowed people across Singapore - supermarkets, wet markets, heartland shops observing decisions in the moment rather than asking about them after the fact.
- Then we sat with them: in-depth interviews with families, solo dwellers, retirees, people who cook every day and people who rarely do.
- To scale those stories, we ran a survey of 1,000 respondents to see how far the patterns held across demographics.
- And finally, we brought customers and FairPrice staff into co-creation workshops together to map pain points and test early ideas against people who actually live them.
What changed at the shelf
The research led to tangible upgrades across FairPrice stores.
- Smarter freshness cues like harvest dates, QR codes helped build trust where it was missing
- Pre-packed produce was revamped to meet fresh standards without sacrificing convenience