Ozarka Case Analysis | TUDelft

2020

During the Course of Sustainable Consumer Behaviour I conducted a research about the Case of Ozarka and after having analysed the current business model some guidelines and recommendation have been drawn.

Ozarka is the parent company in the Netherlands of ARK Reusables, founded by Beth Massa and Michael Massa. Ozarka offers a deposit-based system for reusable takeout containers , as well as a retail store where every product is offered in multi-use or reusable packaging . Ozarka is a Product-Service System offering a solution for a Business-to-Business-to-Consumer (B2B2C) context.

Their mission is to make it easy for restaurant owners, food industry professionals and consumers to drastically reduce single-use food packaging waste.

Ozarka offers an access-based product-service system (AB-PSS) alternative which aims to replace single-use plastic packaging with reusable food boxes for the takeaway retailers.

A sketch of the current Business Model

Food packagings have many advantages, such as of storing, transporting, preserving food fresh and preventing food waste besides those beneficial properties, these packagings are known to harm the environment due to the high production volume, often short usage time, and problems related to waste management and littering (Geueke et al., 2018). The transition to more sustainable production and consumption patterns requires changes in mainstream business models.

How can Ozarka improve their strategies in order to achieve more sustainable outcomes either for the environment and for the business itself?

The Value Mapping Tool (Bocken et al., 2015) has been adopted to help us better understand the positive and negative aspects of value captured, but also missed, destroyed or wasted in a network where multiple stakeholders are involved and to identify opportunities for the sustainable business model redesign – especially to improve societal and environmental impact.

The product and service offered are not properly integrated to offer a more sustainable PSS, which can be seen in the low popularity of the brand and poor network of clients involved in the current system and the low level of customer acceptance. Actually, Ozarka is based on a long-term benefit rather than on tangible short-term rewards for both users and retailers.

Interventions and Recommendations

Overcome adoption barriers by extending the network of clients and repositioning the product in the market.

From B2B2C to B2B strategies to avoid Rebound Effects.

Increase the short-term rewards and reduce the effort to act.

Reach more segments with lower motivation or opportunity to act sustainably.

Straightening the relation with retailers by creating a community.

Reaching consumers through their established habits.

Explode social component with the community captured through Social Media.

Conceptualisation

The Business Model has been redesigned according to the new sustainable concept.

A circular B2B2C Model that involves multiple clients. In this sketch the singular food retailers are counted as partners of the food delivery services. Here Ozarka extended the network of clients and the containers get swapped by the service instead of relying on the consumer.

From takeaway reusable boxes to reusable packagings for food delivery:

Strengthening the network of food retailers by partnering up with food delivery platforms

Concept Description:

Other than providing food retailers with takeaway reusable containers as it is in the current business, Ozarka will partner-up with food delivery services such as Deliveroo, UberEats, HelloFresh, Thuisbezorgd and others working in The Netherlands and provide them with the reusable food containers kit.

A sketch of the Concept 2 with hospitals like an example - A circular B2B Model where the consumer side has been cut out. There are no exchanges of values with the users who will just eat the food in the containers but with no control over them.

Ozarka goes to the hospital!

Repositioning the company in the market and focusing mainly on a B2B solution.

In concept 2, the customer relation is a partnership . Ozarka provides containers to the different businesses and ensures their permanent stock, the businesses pay back a rental fee and are in charge of the internal logistics of the service including pick them up, wash and sanitize them. In this way the model will be 100% circular.

Different scenarios for Concept 2

In conclusion, it is difficult to change consumer behaviour especially when strongly liked in a certain routine for this reason businesses need to act strategically and change their business models in order to offer sustainable solutions that reduce the effort from the consumer and enter their daily routine subtly.

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