Agency serves up interactive 'Yellow Sticker Cookbook'

Uncommon CX, the customer experience division of Uncommon Creative Studios, has launched a self-funded project aiming to provide a solution for the cost-of-living crisis by helping people put together meals from supermarkets’ reduced sections.

The Yellow Sticker Cookbook app, named after the yellow stickers used to indicate reduced-price goods, has been inspired by research which showed one in seven Brits are skipping meals to save money.

Agency founder Jonathan Goodman, the former Lida chief executive, said that launching the app “at a time of year when people might be feeling the pinch more than ever” was a key consideration.

Goodman maintains that while the reduced sections of supermarkets have the potential to help people make their money stretch further, it can be challenging to “put a quick meal together from random items”. The Yellow Sticker Cookbook aims to make it easier to incorporate these items into meals through a simple process.

Users scan the barcode of a food item via the Yellow Sticker Cookbook app, which then identifies the item through Google Vision API which sends back a list of relevant recipe options. There is also the option to add in ingredients they already have at home.

Once a recipe is chosen, the app provides all of the information on how to prepare and cook the meal.

The Yellow Sticker Cookbook aims to make “buying reduced food fun”, so Uncommon kept families in mind throughout the design process, says Goodman. When thinking about people’s cooking ability, the studio worked on the basis that users “cook at home, but are not entirely confident chefs”.

The app is designed to work across all recent devices and meets standard accessibility levels. Goodman says the goal is to bring partners onboard as it grows to become “a scalable platform that can incorporate more recipe content from chefs and brands in the future”.