Kitchen Blueprint

Overview

Kitchen Blueprint is a Cargill-developed digital platform designed to bring transparency, intelligence, and optimization to restaurant back-of-house (BOH) operations. Positioned as the “brain of the kitchen,” the platform aggregates operational data to identify cost drivers, reduce waste, surface automation opportunities, and ultimately improve profitability and labor efficiency.

As design lead, I shaped the product vision, experience strategy, and end-to-end UX, translating complex operational and data-heavy concepts into actionable insights that operators could understand and trust.

The Problem

Restaurant kitchens generate massive amounts of data—but very little of it is visible or actionable.

Key challenges included:

• Limited visibility into where loss, waste, and inefficiency actually occur

• Operational decisions driven by intuition rather than evidence

• Fragmented systems across inventory, labor, and production

• Rising labor costs and pressure to identify automation opportunities

• Existing tools focused on reporting, not decision-making

Cargill saw an opportunity to leverage its deep foodservice expertise and digital innovation capabilities to create a platform that could make the invisible visible.

My Responsibilities

• Led design for a net-new, data-driven product

• Defined the experience vision for Kitchen Blueprint as a:

  • Decision support system

  • Operational intelligence platform

• Designed:

  • Core dashboards and data visualizations

  • Insight discovery and prioritization flows

  • BOH-centric interaction patterns

• Partnered closely with:

  • Product management

  • Engineering and data teams

  • Foodservice and operations experts

  • External innovation partners

• Balanced technical complexity with usability and clarity

Design Approach

1. From Data to Decisions

Kitchen Blueprint was not about showing more data—it was about showing the right data.

Design focused on:

• Highlighting where costs concentrate

• Making waste and loss immediately visible

• Surfacing patterns operators could act on quickly

Insights were framed around “what’s happening,” “why it matters,” and “what to do next.”

2. Designing the Brain, Not the Interface

Rather than mimicking traditional dashboards, the experience was designed to feel like an operational control layer:

• Clear prioritization over raw metrics

• Visual hierarchy that guided attention

• Progressive disclosure for deeper analysis

This allowed operators to move from overview to action without friction.

3. Real-Time Inventory Visibility with Cameras

A key innovation was integrating in-restaurant cameras to capture stock levels in real time.

Design considerations included:

• Visualizing camera-derived inventory data in a way operators could trust

• Blending automated signals with human oversight

• Making stock visibility feel supportive, not punitive

This capability helped bridge the gap between physical kitchens and digital systems, enabling more accurate inventory tracking and waste reduction.

4. Designing for Automation Readiness

Kitchen Blueprint was intentionally forward-looking:

• Highlighting processes suitable for automation

• Identifying labor-intensive or error-prone steps

• Supporting future integration with automated systems

The experience helped restaurants see where automation would deliver the most value, not just where it was possible.

Outcomes & Impact

• Delivered a foundational intelligence platform for BOH operations

• Enabled operators to:

  • Identify cost drivers

  • Reduce waste

  • Improve labor efficiency

• Demonstrated how data, sensors, and design could work together to modernize kitchens

• Positioned Cargill as a digital innovation partner, not just an ingredient supplier

While specific metrics are proprietary, Kitchen Blueprint validated the concept of a centralized BOH intelligence layerfor foodservice operations.

What This Demonstrates

• Leading design for data-heavy, operational products

• Translating complex systems into clear, actionable experiences

• Designing across software, hardware, and physical environments

• Strong partnership with data science, engineering, and domain experts

• Ability to define and ship net-new platforms inside large enterprises

Why It Matters

Kitchen Blueprint reinforced a core design belief that guides my work today:

The future of operations isn’t more tools—it’s better intelligence.

By designing the brain of the kitchen, we enabled smarter decisions, reduced waste, and opened the door to meaningful automation at scale.