Artificial intelligence against food waste

Dear Blog Readers,

After my overview of the application areas of Artificial Intelligence in the last blog article #3, I would like to follow up with this article and take a closer look at one application area of Artificial Intelligence: the use of Artificial Intelligence in food production. In addition to productivity and efficiency gains, the use of Artificial Intelligence in food production offers, above all, the great opportunity to reduce food waste. Every year, 12 million tons of food waste is generated in Germany. 18% of this is due to food processing. Artificial intelligence can help change that and reduce food waste. 

The conditions for the use of artificial intelligence in food production are ideal. Strict legal rules apply in the food industry. As a result, an above-average amount of product- and process-related data is generated. 

Two fields of action can be identified for the use of AI software: First, it is about improving the plannability of value creation stages and the quality of production processes. Secondly, it is about optimizing the value chains themselves and simplifying communication between the individual value creation partners in order to increase resource efficiency. In the following, I will introduce you to some projects and companies that have already taken on these fields of action:

REIF- resource-efficient, economic and intelligent foodchain. - this project is led by Augsburg University of Applied Sciences in a joint consortium with numerous partners from science, production and retail. The goal is to make the entire food value chain plannable and controllable with the help of artificial intelligence. The resulting intelligent data exchange should reduce overproduction and waste, or at best even avoid them altogether. It will be used primarily for rapidly perishable raw materials, such as those produced in dairies or bakeries. In retail, for example, the project plans AI-controlled price reductions when the best-before date is about to be exceeded. In this way, losses in procurement and sales can gradually be optimized. 

Also the project EVAREST is also trying to reduce food waste with the help of artificial intelligence. For this purpose, data on demand, quality, transport and raw material deliveries are collected and made available to the AI. 

The company SPRK.global has focused on saving food that has already been produced. An AI-driven distribution technology is designed to help redistribute surplus food. The redistribution takes place to non-profit organizations and to commercial suppliers. 

At foodable Artificial Intelligence is used to avoid food waste when planning purchases. All ingredients can be ordered via the cooking app. The app takes into account which ingredients are still in stock. As a result, users only buy what they really need. 

foodforecast also pursues the goal of using artificial intelligence for more sustainability in food production. The artificial intelligence of foodforecast creates a daily sales forecast for bakeries. In the sales forecast, the AI takes into account numerous internal and external factors that the store manager herself would not be able to incorporate into her ordering process. As a result, ordering is much more demand-driven, so fewer baked goods have to end up in the garbage can at the end of the day. You can find out more about our AI-supported baking plan on our website 😊.

Unfortunately, the use of artificial intelligence in food production is still far from exploiting its huge potential to reduce food waste. This makes it all the more important that startups like foodforecast are actively supported to make our world more sustainable.