An experiment in everyday food decisions

Food decisions, made earlier.

Daki is exploring how clearer information, and the option to decide ahead, could help people find food that fits their day. The same choices, shared anonymously and in aggregate, might help dining teams understand the people they serve.

Pre-launch. Daki is preparing an initial Harvard-focused experiment. It has not launched, has no active users, and has not secured an institutional pilot.

Explore the Prototype

How far ahead to plan in this illustration

A concept illustration, not live menu data. A diner can plan several meals or only the next one; anonymous, aggregated intentions could give a dining team an earlier view of interest.

Product preview

One meal decision, in three small steps

Tap through a quick version of the diner journey. Pick what sounds right, see a couple of options with reasons, then choose now or plan ahead.

This is an early product concept, not a live Harvard dining service.

Preview using illustrative menu data

DinnerToday

What sounds right?

Pick one. You can change it any time.

DinnerSomething filling

Options for you

Dinner

Planned for Thursday

One less decision later. Change it whenever you like.

Explore the full prototype
Step 1 of 3

Two sides of the same meal

One decision, seen from both sides of the counter

Every meal involves a person choosing and a team that planned, ordered and cooked well before that moment. Daki is testing whether a little earlier information could help both.

For diners

Less guesswork about what to eat

See what is available, compare options that fit your needs and preferences, and plan a meal or a week ahead only if you want to.

  • See what is being served where you can eat
  • Compare the options that are relevant to you
  • Plan ahead when it helps, decide later when it doesn't
For Diners

For dining teams

Earlier, aggregated feedback

Explore with dining professionals whether voluntary, privacy-conscious input from diners could improve communication and help teams understand demand sooner.

  • Shared only in aggregate, never as individual histories
  • Shaped by what dining teams say would be useful
  • Every operational benefit treated as a hypothesis
For Dining Teams
Future possibility

Calendars made time easier to plan. Could food work the same way?

Few people plan every hour of their day, but a calendar makes it easy to plan the hours that matter. Daki is exploring whether food decisions could work in a similar way: a voluntary layer for choosing meals ahead, seeing them next to everything else, and changing your mind whenever you like.

This is a direction being explored, not a finished product. Whether it helps, and for whom, is what the first experiment is meant to find out.

Read the research question
TuesdayConcept
Evidence

What a first survey suggests

In September 2026, 158 university students, nearly all with a meal plan, answered a survey about campus dining. A few findings shaped the experiment.

58.9%reported difficulty deciding what to eat at least sometimes
57.6%wanted to see all current campus dining options in one place
82.3%expressed high interest in trying the concept once (4 or 5 out of 5)

About this evidence. These figures come from one survey of 158 respondents collected September 19–29, 2026. It was a convenience sample, and the answers reflect stated behavior and interest. The survey does not demonstrate repeat use, product-market fit, customer demand or institutional impact.

See the full findings and limits

Current status

Where things stand today

  • Pre-launchNothing is live. An interactive prototype with illustrative data shows the idea.
  • No active usersCurrent evidence comes from a survey and early discovery, not product use.
  • No signed pilotDaki has no institutional agreement with any dining team.
  • Harvard is the intended settingIt is where the first experiment is planned. It is not a confirmed partner.
  • Next: a focused experimentCurrently targeted for January 2027, subject to what dining teams and testers tell us.
  • Benefits not yet shownHealth, sustainability, waste, forecasting and operational benefits have not been demonstrated.

Help shape the first experiment

Join the waitlist to hear when early testing opens and to tell us how you eat. If you work in dining, we would like to learn from you before anything is built for your team.

The waitlist is a short Google Form. Joining does not give immediate access; it helps Daki recruit early testers and understand dining contexts for the first Harvard-focused experiment.

Work in dining, research, or campus life?

We would like to learn what information would be useful to you before anything is built for dining teams.

Or write to maverickyasuda@college.harvard.edu