The Campaign

Since unhealthy eating behaviours are hard to change we decided to tackle how Thais eat their food. In cooperation with Thai Health Promotion Foundation, we created “AbsorbPlate,” The world’s first innovative design that makes Thai food less greasy and allow Thais to eat each meal healthier. Hundreds of tiny holes, inspired by the texture of sponge, make AbsorbPlate able to separate excess oil from food before people eat it. The plate can reduce up to 7 ml of grease or approximately 30 calories per plate. The plates were designed to be easy to wash. In order to eat healthier, all they need to do is just continue their regular eating behaviour on our plate.

Creative Execution

By researching the most popular Thai dishes and how they are served and consumed, we find that the content of the food sit in a pool of excessive grease that collects at the bottom of the dish, and is scooped up with each bite. To trap food grease before it enters the body, we found the last touch point to be the plate. Thus, we turned the plate into a tool to trap grease itself. We use thermo setting and compressed molding techniques to produce hundreds of tiny holes inspired from sponge on its surface to separate excess grease from food. There are 5 different patterns with aesthetic appeal. Each AbsorbPlate has 500 holes that reduce up to 7 ml of grease, approximately 30 calories per plate. The curve of each hole was designed to be easy-to-wash. The plates are designed to create the same seamless eating experience, except healthier.

Indication of how successful the outcome was in the market

More than 10,000 plates were distributed to hundreds of Thai restaurant across the country, impacting more than 30,000 meals daily, and reduced more than 1,00,000 calories per day. Thailand’s obesity growth rate decreased by 9%. Most importantly, with AbsorbPlate, Thai people can enjoy their regular delicious meals in a healthier way.

The target was defined as people who consume their meals out of home, they do not cook their own meals and consume what’s delicious but not necessarily healthy in restaurants daily. Research shows that unhealthy eating behaviours are hard to change: most Thai people go for what’s delicious and less than 10% of Thais can follow through with their healthy-eating program, the other 90% could not go through with it. So, the strategy was to tackle the food itself and make each meal healthier without requiring our target to change their behaviour. The campaign was applied in touchpoints where our target have their meals every day nationwide, which are the local restaurants, and restaurants in universities, schools, offices, and food courts.