How to reduce the more than 2.5 billion tons of food that is wasted every year around the world? The answer is in our garbage bins and artificial intelligence knows it. A company called Winnow has developed an AI-powered tool that spies on waste in hotels and restaurants. Another company, Afresh, analyzes supermarket data to look for mismatches between what a store offers and what people buy.
By installing a camera above the container, this technology can identify the types of food discarded, calculate its value based on the cost of the products and break down the number of servings wasted in a day for a specific product, estimate its cost and determine emissions of associated CO2.
Establishments can now detect valuable information that they were throwing away for years. Half of the scrambled eggs on the breakfast buffet go to waste, along with many of the cakes whose portions are too large. This not only translates into economic savings for companies. Much of this waste, if not composted, ends up in landfills and sends powerful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere that warm the planet.
The United Nations has warned that food waste generates almost 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions, which is equivalent to almost five times more than the aviation sector. The cost of food loss and waste to the global economy is estimated at approximately $1 trillion.
While more than 700 million people go hungry in the world, one in every five plates of food ends up in the trash during the year 2022, according to the latest report from the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP). The most discarded products include 8 kg of fruits, 3.8 kg of vegetables, 1.3 kg of milk and 18.8 kg of other foods. 12% of this waste originates from businesses, 28% from restaurants, while 60% comes from our homes.
