The Know Sugar Shop will be the first of its kind, a prototype pop-up retail outlet to challenge our collective sweet tooth and highlight the amount of hidden ‘bad’ sugars we consume every day. This (perhaps?) world first, will open in Dundee’s Wellgate Shopping Centre for two days only on 8th and 9th August.
The Know Sugar Shop will be an interactive space where visitors can profile map their personal awareness of their sugar consumption, take the Know Sugar challenge, have an in-depth health check, and interact with a prototype kitchen space where you will find ready-made ‘grab bags’ and ingredients which can be prepared into full low sugar meals. On exiting, visitors are invited to focus on future changes in their relationship with the sweet stuff by completing the Now I Know Sugar, my pledge is… chalkboard.
Lauren Currie, co-founder of Snook – the design agency leading Know Sugar – spoke this week of hopes to strike a chord with the concept’s target audience. She said: “We hope Know Sugar Shop will educate, inform and inspire citizens to re-think their relationship with sugar and take positive action.”
The original idea grew from a programme led by University of Dundee and the Arts and Humanities Research Council’s first Design in Action Chiasma in Glasgow in February. The focus of the chiasma was to develop new ideas for the wellbeing sector, specifically type-2 diabetes.
Hollywood actor and rector of the University of Dundee, Brian Cox, was at this session and made a passionate presentation relating to his own diagnosis of type-2 diabetes. The Know Sugar concept impressed the chiasma judges in its smart use of user and co-centred design. From the outset, its agenda was threefold; focusing on ways to reduce the amount of sugar consumed by both children and adults, prompting retailers of all sizes to take positive action to address the sugar issue and, ultimately, to change future government policy.
Brian McNicoll, business partnership manager at Design in Action, saw the potential in the idea from the start. Snook, in collaboration with Andy Harrold, Founder of Buro Design Thinking, social designer, Eilidh Ellery, and Ewan Macpherson, Director of business strategy and innovation firm, Ideality, have pulled together to make the concept an early stage reality.
The Know Sugar Shop team are welcoming volunteers to help with the physical installation of the shop space and the running of its live format over the two days. Locals and people across Scotland are encouraged to drop by to offer feedback on the ideas being prototyped.
To get involved or learn more around Know Sugar: www.knowsugar.org