A Swiss start-up is helping companies measure their food waste. After all, we have to measure things often to be able to improve them. The Kitro company has designed an AI rubbish bin that measures how much food is thrown away. In this way, companies gain insight into the extent of their food waste.
The Swiss company was founded by Anastasia Hofmann and Naomi MacKenzie. They did this during their studies at a hospitality management school. They wanted to tackle the fact that hotels serve a lot of food but still throw away big portions of it. By looking at which things are thrown away most often you can ensure that less food is wasted. This can be done, for example, by buying less of the foods that appear to be thrown away more often.
How does the AI rubbish bin work?
Kitro places a camera above the trash can. Every time a plate of food enters the AI trash can, the camera photographs what is on it and weighs how much was thrown away. In this way all the wasted food is registered. Through artificial intelligence (AI), the device can determine which food and how much of it is thrown away.
Registering food waste in this way can save up to $100,000 a year at a company. Food waste also decreases by about 40% according to Kitro. Jean-Vital Domezon, manager of the Hotel D’Angleterre in Geneva explains how the machine has already helped them:
In the morning at breakfast the guests get scrambled eggs. On the plate we used to serve a cherry tomato for decoration. But then we realized, thanks to Kitro, that no one ate the cherry tomato. So what is the point of putting it on the plate if no one eats it? Now, we simply take care of how a dish is presented, without the tomato. At the end of the month, it is a few kilos of tomatoes that don’t end up in the bin and compost. Now they can be reused or not purchased, resulting in less food waste. .
Source text: World Economic Forum
Source image: Unsplash