Can AI solve our food wastage problem?

There is a growing requirement for food to feed those already vulnerable and those made vulnerable, unexpectedly, by Covid-19. Marcus Rashford has highlighted the inequalities week in week out throughout lockdown. The issue becomes even more striking when considering the level of food wasted each year. There is a clear imbalance between the amount of wasted food in the UK and the amount of people in need. This is an obvious problem, but the solution will require creativity, intuition, and strategic focus.

1. 4.5 tonnes of fresh food are wasted each year in the UK (the equivalent to 8,800 lobsters)
2. An area the size of Wales would be needed to produce the food that is wasted (WRAP, 2020)
3. The need for food banks has surged at record levels.

It doesn’t take our genius tech team to understand the problems and complexities of these stats. Thankfully, technology and innovation have, for centuries, been a driving force to aid human safety and quality of life from Thomas Edison and the lightbulb allowing us on-demand light and Nils Bohlin and the seatbelt improving road safety. Next AI and food wastage.

Emerging technology has huge power to improve human lives. At EBI.AI we are empowered by our ability to inspire real, tangible change. According to WRAP (a leading food wastage charity) 3 key attributers to food wastage are:

1. 74% of people don’t write a shopping list
2. 35% of people don’t plan their meals
3. 24% of people don’t know what is in the fridge before they go to the supermarket.

Imagine if…

Now imagine if every product put in the bin was scanned on its way in. As the product is scanned the bin performs complex algorithms to identify, firstly, the sell by date of the product versus the date when it was binned, and, secondly, the weight of the product — proving how much wastage there was. When writing a digital shopping list, the bin can highlight that only 2 chicken breasts, instead of 4, are likely to be needed this week, as twice in the past month 2 fresh chicken breasts have been wasted.

Continue to imagine that when your Tesco or Asda delivery arrives every product has a sell by date matching your exact needs — no more sighing because the chicken you ordered only has 3 days left and is therefore highly likely to be wasted. As consumers create their digital shopping list, they can consider it in terms of meal planning. On Monday and Wednesday chicken-based dishes: on Friday pizza. By correlating meals in estimated order of when they will be eaten the Food Picker in store is able to ensure that the dates meet consumer’s needs. For example, the pizza with the longest sell by date is given to those having pizza at the end of the week and the customer who is having pizza tomorrow can receive the closer sell by date.

Finally, imagine if at the bottom of your receipt statistics were given regarding your food shop. For example, 20% was spent on fruit and veg, 10% frozen food, 15% snacks and crisps and so forth. These statistics could also be given for government guidelines on sustainable and ethical shopping - allowing consumers to re-gain control of their shopping.

Now imagine, if in fact all those scenarios are remarkably close to completion. Discover below some of the solutions already available with EBI.AI.

Readily available…

EBI.AI retail assistants have built in sustainability screens. A customer can take a picture of their product and have instant access to sustainability data such as water usage, laboured hours and distance travelled among many other statistics. We are thus empowering consumers to take control of and hold themselves accountable for their wastage.

EBI.AI also has the capability for customers to scan a product and then digitally add it to their shopping list. Want more lemons? Just take a picture of a lemon, no bar code is required, and add it to the shopping list. This makes meal planning fast and simple. It can be done on the go which means the customer is more likely to plan their shopping, consequently leading to less food waste.

Finally, our incredible partners Plant Jammer have an ‘Empty Your Fridge’ tool that integrates with our AI assistants. The issue of buying duplicates because you didn’t know what was in your fridge when you went shopping is solved! Plant Jammer’s tool allows the customer to choose what products they have left in the fridge and then uses these ingredients to return a delicious recipe, full of compatible flavours and textures.

Just as technology has previously had such a powerful impact on humankind, we believe AI can have an incredibly powerful impact on food wastage. We have used creativity, intuition, and strategic focus to counteract some of the main contributors to food waste such as not planning meals and not writing a shopping list. If you feel your organisation could do more to deep dive the issue of wastage, rather than finding immediate short-term solutions whether that be food, fashion or otherwise, we can create a demo to highlight how our innovative solutions can help you.

Whilst we continue to implement these amazing solutions people across the UK continue to struggle with the effects of Covid-19. Therefore, EBI.AI has made a donation to our local foodbank.