On the Table: Scaling AI-Led Food Waste and Surplus Visibility, Reduction and Redistribution (Sustainable Ventures)

Summary

• In the pilots, 197.1 tonnes of finished packaged goods surplus was donated by Nestlé to Company Shop Group and FareShare, equivalent to 469,189 meals.p.5
• In 2021, just under 2.1 million tonnes of food waste and surplus was generated by UK food manufacturers, and only 42,000 tonnes of it was redistributed to people.p.5
• In 2022, 1.05 billion tonnes of food waste was generated across the globe, and managing food waste costs the global economy US$1 trillion every year.p.8
• Of UK manufacturing food surplus, 6% was redistributed to people while 94% was sent to animal feed.p.11
• The nine-partner consortium project ran over 16 months, piloting solutions from Zest and Bristol Superlight.p.14
• On one line, Zest's AI solution identified 12.3 tonnes of food surplus compared with 3 tonnes found by a manual waste walk.p.20

Key insights

1. Digitising food waste and surplus data is the foundation for better business decisions in manufacturing.p.18
2. Zest's real-time visibility solution created a digital waste map in 2 weeks, versus 1 month for the manual waste walk approach.p.20
3. About 70% of change programmes fail, largely due to employee resistance and lack of management support, so human connection matters.p.22
4. Under Nestlé's everyone-wins model, financial returns from surplus are split 50% to the factory, 25% to Community Shop and 25% to charity partners.p.25
5. The Coronation Food Project worked with 35 organisations to rescue nearly 5,000 tonnes of food, equivalent to 12.5 million meals.p.27
6. The pilots show AI-led food waste and surplus visibility, reduction and redistribution can be achieved today.p.7