A consortium of leading brands and food charities announced a ‘first of a kind’ AI solution to redistribute the equivalent of up to 1.5 million surplus meals.
Sustainable Ventures have brought together Bristol Superlight, FareShare, FuturePlus, Google Cloud, Howard Tenens Logistics, Nestlé UK&I and Zest (formerly The Wonki Collective) to develop a solution to help get more of the good-to-eat food that is currently being wasted to people across the UK.
In the UK, 4.6 million tonnes of edible food, which is equivalent to 10 billion meals of food, is wasted each year.
The ‘AI food redistribution’ project is part of Innovate UK’s BridgeAI initiative - which provided a £1.9 million grant which is match-funded for cutting-edge projects intent on harnessing AI to drive productivity and innovation. The consortium will develop and pilot an end-to-end AI led solution that, over the course of the project, will redistribute up to 700 tonnes of quality surplus food - the equivalent of up to 1.5 million meals.
Trials throughout the project are also estimated to prevent up to 1,400 tonnes of CO2 being emitted and deliver up to £14 million of cost savings. Earlier trials of the Zest technology reportedly delivered an 87 per cent reduction in edible food waste at a single Nestlé factory, over a two week period.
The collaboration sees the development and piloting of Zest’s integrated AI powered platform that will connect food manufacturers, logistics providers and charities. The integrated AI powered platform leverages Google Cloud’s BigQuery and Vertex AI platform to streamline and accelerate the process of matching available surplus food, including products and ingredients, to where there is demand. Bristol Superlight’s integrated AI/Machine Learning (ML)-driven logistics system enables the quality of surplus food to be measured and tracked throughout its delivery journey.
Once tested, the ‘AI food redistribution’ solution could be applied at scale across the food supply chain, and offers commercial and charitable opportunities for the entire sector, the consortium said/
“We believe in the power of collaboration. Bringing together this fantastic group of stakeholders will reduce the time and risk taken to develop this new AI food supply chain management platform, whilst providing a market ready solution that can be rolled out across the industry,” Simon Brown, Corporate Innovation Partner of Sustainable Ventures, said.
Nestlé UK&I has been the key provider of surplus food for redistribution throughout the project.
Dr Emma Keller, Head of Sustainability Nestlé UK & Ireland, said: “As the world’s largest food manufacturer, it is important for us at Nestlé to set an example on food waste. This exciting cross-industry initiative builds on work we have undertaken over the last decade to tackle food waste and will enable us to further optimise surplus within our operations. With the country suffering from historically high food poverty and food insecurity rates while food waste continues to rise, focusing on this is the right thing for us as a business to do.”
