Winnow, the company behind an artificial intelligence tool that helps chefs reduce food waste, says it wants to save the hospitality industry $1bn worth of food waste a year by 2025.
The technology startup last week raised more than £9m in a funding round. It brings the London company’s October fundraising total to more than £15m, after it secured a loan from the European Investment Bank.
The company launched its Winnow Vision product earlier this year. It consists of a digital scale, which is placed under the main bin in a kitchen. Above the bin a tablet console is fitted, which features a camera.
During the AI system’s ‘training phase’ it makes a best guess at what has been thrown out, which staff confirm on the screen. Eventually, after recording around 1,000 images, the system learns to recognise what has been discarded.
Armed with the data, kitchens and caterers can better take actions to cut waste.
“The addition of Winnow Vision to our portfolio means that statistically speaking, we are currently saving around 23 million meals a year from the bin. This equates to one meal saved every two seconds,” said co-founder Kevin Duffy.
Kitchens using Winnow’s previous offering, which featured a scale under a bin and a touchscreen for staff to select what they were discarding, but no camera or AI function, saw a 40% to 70% reduction in food waste within six to 12 months, the company claimed.
Launched in a single staff restaurant in 2013, Winnow has been adopted by more than 1,000 sites globally, operating in 40 countries. The company has offices in London, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, Cluj-Napoca and Iowa City.
“Whilst we are proud of our achievements to date, we are just getting started,” said fellow co-founder Marc Zornes.
“Ultimately, food is too precious to waste, and technology can play a big role in changing this,” he added.
The funding boost, which comes from Ingka Group, Mustard Seed, Circularity Capital, D-Ax and The Ingenious Group, will be used to accelerate the company’s technology development and global expansion.
“With this new cash injection, we will be able to further improve our existing technology and prioritise product development to accelerate our growth globally and take Winnow to the next phase,” said Zornes. “This means investing in new quality assurance engineers to enhance our development, as well as in front end developers to improve reporting.”
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