project - Research and innovation
LOWINFOOD: Multi-actor design of low-waste food value chains through the demonstration of innovative solutions to reduce food loss and waste
LOWINFOOD: Progettazione multi-attore di filiere agroalimentari a basso spreco attraverso l’implementazione di soluzioni innovative per ridurre le perdite di cibo
Objectives
The main goal of the project is to co-design low-waste value chains in the fruit and vegetable, baked goods and fish sectors, including at-home and out-of-home consumption. The project will validate and demonstrate a set of technological, social and organisational solutions, and evaluate the impact of these innovations in reducing food waste and improving the socioeconomic and environmental performance of the value chains.
Objectives
L'obiettivo principale del progetto è quello di co-progettare filiere a basso spreco nei settori dell'ortofrutta, dei prodotti da forno e del pesce, considerando anche il consumo in casa e fuori casa. Il progetto implementerà e validerà una serie di soluzioni tecnologiche, sociali e organizzative e valuterà l'impatto di queste innovazioni sulla riduzione degli sprechi alimentari e sul miglioramento delle prestazioni socioeconomiche e ambientali delle filiere.
Activities
The core activities of the project are all focused on the evaluation of the efficacy of these innovations in reducing food losses and waste. The impact of the innovations will be evaluated considering the amount of food waste avoided as well as in environmental and socio-economic terms. Fruits & vegetables, bakery products and fish value chains are selected as settings to apply the innovations as these perishable foods are particularly concerned by the issue of food waste. For each value chain, the upstream stages are considered in the demonstration of the innovations, from production to retailing. Another set of innovations is applied to the consumer level, with the aim to avoid the waste of all foods in out-of-home and at-home consumption.
Additional comments
A portfolio of 14 innovations has been selected among promising solutions that have already been developed and tested by some partners, and includes technological tools and devices as well as organizational and managerial solutions. LOWINFOOD will improve the TRL of all the 14 innovations, including technological tools and devices as well as organizational and managerial solutions, to bring them closer to market and foster their adoption across value chains in several EU countries. They already have a minimum TRL of 4/5 (technologies that have been validated in the lab and in the relevant environment), and LOWINFOOD will upscale them up to TRL 7/8 (prototype demonstration in an operational environment, and completed and certified systems).
Further details
- Main funding source
- Horizon 2020 (EU Research and Innovation Programme)
Location details
- Main geographical location
- Viterbo
Project keyword
€ 5,534,161.8
Total budget
Total contributions including EU funding.
5 Practice Abstracts
In LOWINFOOD, REGUSTO's innovation aims at monitoring food taken home by consumers from restaurants by tracking food destination, consumption and food waste generation from food taken home through the REGUSTO Bag, whether it is complete meals to be consumed at home (take-away food) or leftover meals taken home through the (REGUSTO) doggy-bag.Together with the implemented REGUSTO App and the REGUSTO Bag, an additional tool has been developed to monitor the food brought home to the basket. A QR code has been developed and distributed to selected restaurants involved in the activity with the continuous aim of collecting and validating data on at least 500 consumers. The QR code is applied to the REGUSTO Bags that are used to take meals out. By scanning this tag with their smartphones, users will access a questionnaire to monitor the food left in the bag at the end of the meal. The innovation has been implemented to allow consumers to record a photo to show leftovers at the time of REGUSTO's food delivery (both takeaway meals and restaurant leftovers) and at the latest 24 hours later.The data collected will increase the information on the destination of food after take-away by answering the question "Is the food taken away from restaurants actually consumed at home?" and the question of exploring the generation of food waste from take-away and leftover consumption. The full picture of the analysis also involves restaurants for which the level of food waste is analysed and closely monitored before, during and after the introduction of the innovation to provide valuable tools for management and cost optimisation.
In LOWINFOOD, l'innovazione di REGUSTO mira a monitorare il cibo portato a casa dai consumatori dai ristoranti tracciando la destinazione del cibo, il consumo e la generazione di rifiuti alimentari dal cibo portato a casa attraverso la REGUSTO Bag, sia che si tratti di pasti completi da consumare a casa (cibo da asporto) o di pasti avanzati portati a casa attraverso la (REGUSTO) doggy-bag.Insieme alla App e alla REGUSTO bag, è stato sviluppato un ulteriore strumento per monitorare il cibo portato a casa dal ristorante. Si tratta di un QR code che è stato sviluppato e distribuito a ristoranti selezionati coinvolti nell'attività con l'obiettivo di raccogliere e validare dati su almeno 500 consumatori. Il codice QR viene applicato alle bag di REGUSTO. Scannerizzando questo tag con il proprio smartphone, gli utenti accederanno a un questionario per monitorare il consumo di cibo contenuto nella bag. L'innovazione è stata implementata per permettere ai consumatori di scattare una foto al momento della consegna della bag (sia pasti da asporto che cibo avanzato a fine pasto al ristorante) e un’altra, al più tardi, 24 ore dopo.I dati raccolti contribuiranno ad aumentare la conoscenza sulla destinazione del cibo dopo il take-away rispondendo alla domanda "il cibo portato via dai ristoranti viene effettivamente consumato a casa?" e la questione di esplorare la generazione di rifiuti alimentari dal consumo take-away. Il quadro completo dell'analisi coinvolge anche i ristoranti per i quali il livello di spreco alimentare viene analizzato e monitorato attentamente prima, durante e dopo l'introduzione dell'innovazione per fornire strumenti preziosi per la gestione e l'ottimizzazione dei costi.
Good food management practices help reduce food waste at home. CozZo is a home grocery management system that provides a solution to keep track of purchases and cooked meals in order to organize more accurately the purchase of food supplies and to avoid over-purchasing, over-cooking and spoilage of food.As consumers are spending an increasing amount of time on their mobile devices, mobile apps hold great potential in providing help with food management and food waste reduction at home. To demonstrate this potential, households recruited from Austria, Finland, and Greece will use the mobile application “CozZo” in their everyday life for six weeks.The expected results of the demonstration will shed light on the effects of using the app on food waste and other food management practices. Effectiveness of the app will be assessed by food waste measurement and analysis (one week before the use and one week at the end of demonstration period).By demonstrating the use in three countries, some differences connected to the cultural and geographical backgrounds are also expected. The value of the upcoming results lies in the identification of both the enabling and hindering factors in adopting a mobile application in household food management and food waste reduction, which can be used as a basis to develop the application further.
Erhebungen zeigen, dass in Haushalten große Mengen an Lebensmittelabfällen entstehen. Die Lebensmittelverschwendung in den Haushalten ist mit verschiedenen alltäglichen Routinen und Gewohnheiten im Zusammenhang mit Lebensmitteln verwoben. Die Gründe für das Aufkommen von Lebensmittelabfällen in Haushalten sind häufig auf Probleme beim Management, wie z. B. auf schlechte Planung oder einem fehlenden Überblick über die Vorräte zurückzuführen.Da Konsumentinnen allerdings immer mehr Zeit mit ihren Handys verbringen, sind Apps prädestiniert dazu diese beim Umgang mit Lebensmitteln zu unterstützen. Um mehr über das Potential herauszufinden, werden Haushalte aus Österreich, Finnland und Griechenland sechs Wochen lang die "CozZo" App in ihrem Alltag nutzen. "CozZo" hilft Lebensmittelvorräte zu verwalten und unterstützt bei der Planung von Einkäufen und Mahlzeiten.Die erwarteten Ergebnisse der Studie werden Aufschluss darüber geben, inwiefern sich die Nutzung der App auf die Lebensmittelabfälle und das gesamte Lebensmittelmanagement im Haushalt auswirkt. Die Durchführung in drei Ländern soll dazu beitragen auch kulturelle bzw. geographische Unterschiede zu erfassen. Der Wert, der bald vorliegenden Ergebnisse, liegt in der Identifizierung von förderlichen als auch von hinderlichen Faktoren, welche die Nutzung der App mit sich bringt. Diese können als Grundlage für die Weiterentwicklung der App verwendet werden.
KITRO is aimed at large kitchens in canteens, hotels or restaurants and enables food waste to be reduced with the help of artificial intelligence, thus saving costs. The innovation consists of a scale and a camera that are installed under and above the waste bin and automatically identify and record discarded food and determine waste quantities. The system is easy to set up and can be adapted to all kitchen waste bins. Measurements are taken automatically with KITRO, eliminating the need for additional labour to operate the device. The collected data, in the form of photos and weights, is then visible via a personalized analytics dashboard. They provide the basis for setting measurable goals and taking action. This allows decisions to be made based on artificial intelligence and processes to be optimized precisely for each property. Throughout the entire period of use of KITRO, the respective kitchens are supported in the installation, application, and data evaluation.In LOWINFOOD, KITRO is tested in WP5 in one Swiss, two German, and two Greek food services in the field of hotel and business catering. So far, a feasibility assessment of a new market entry could be conducted with Greece opening as a new trial location. New insights into our consumer’s operational behaviour and drivers feed the advancements in the reporting and analytics tool. Limited reduction performance metrics could be determined due to covid related delays.https://www.kitro.ch/
KITRO richtet sich insbesondere an Großküchen in Kantinen, Hotels oder Restaurants und ermöglicht es, Lebensmittelabfälle mithilfe künstlicher Intelligenz zu reduzieren und somit Kosten einzusparen. Die Innovation besteht aus einer Waage sowie einer Kamera, die unter bzw. über dem Behälter für Lebensmittelabfälle installiert werden und weggeworfene Lebensmittel automatisch identifizieren und Abfallmengen bestimmen. Das System ist einfach einzurichten und lässt sich an alle Küchenabfallbehälter anpassen. Gemessen wird mit KITRO automatisch, wodurch kein zusätzlicher Arbeitsaufwand für das Bedienen des Gerätes erforderlich ist. Die gesammelten Daten, in Form von Fotos und Gewichten, lassen sich über ein Dashboard in Echtzeit einsehen. Sie stellen die Basis dar, um messbare Ziele zu setzen und Maßnahmen zu ergreifen. Somit lassen Entscheidungen auf Basis von künstlicher Intelligenz treffen treffen und Abläufe passgenau für jede Küche optimieren. Während der gesamten Nutzungszeit von KITRO werden die jeweiligen Betriebe bei der Installation, der Anwendung und Datenauswertung unterstützt.Im Rahmen von LOWINFOOD wird KITRO in einem Schweizer, zwei Deutschen und zwei Griechischen Gastronomiebetrieben im Bereich der Hotel- und Betriebsverpflegung getestet. Bislang konnte eine Machbarkeitsstudie für einen neuen Markteintritt durchgeführt werden, wobei Griechenland als neuer Teststandort eröffnet wurde. Neue Einblicke in das operative Verhalten unserer Kunden und deren Einflussfaktoren fließen in die Weiterentwicklung des Analysetools ein. Aufgrund von Verzögerungen im Zusammenhang mit Covid-19 konnten nur begrenzte Kennzahlen für Food Waste Reduktionen ermittelt werden.
FoodTracks (FT) is an intelligent software that enables to optimize ordering processes in bakeries. It is a demand planning software that provides insights into orders and sales. The challenge many bakeries face is that ordering decisions are made on-site at stores without taking all relevant circumstances into account. This can lead to a high rate of returns or early sell-outs. FT uses the data provided by the bakeries on past sales figures and derives order suggestions for the bakery branches from this. Customer preference, i.e. what the employees in charge of placing the orders finally want to decide, is not disregarded, but can be factored into every ordering decision, so final customers buying the products are never faced with an empty sales counter.FT lets three sides benefit: Environment, sales, and customer satisfaction. During implementation, the focus is on a gradual changeover so that all employees in all areas of the operations are involved. Understanding and enthusiasm for the software should encourage employees to work on the changeover of their own accord.FT is being tested in WP3 in at least three large bakeries in Germany to optimize orders for their stores. In LOWINFOOD the user-friendliness of FT could be further developed. Based on customer feedback FT added a feature to handle changing assortments. For example, the cake assortment changes every 2 weeks, and the software needs to choose data for predictions differently. FT now also shows more detailed weather warnings, for example when the first sunny day in spring is expected to adapt order amounts accordingly. In addition, FT now has a more refined rules system to warn users if returns exceed certain limits.https://www.foodtracks.de/
FoodTracks (FT) ist eine intelligente Software, die es ermöglicht Bestellprozesse in Bäckereien zu optimieren. Es handelt sich um eine Bedarfsplanungssoftware, die Einblicke in die Bestellungen, Verkäufe und das Personalmanagement bietet. Die Herausforderung vieler Bäckereien liegt darin, dass Bestellentscheidungen vor Ort in den Filialen getroffen werden, ohne alle relevanten Umstände zu berücksichtigen. Dies kann zu einer hohen Retourenquote oder zu frühen Ausverkäufen führen. FT nutzt die von den Bäckereien zur Verfügung gestellte Datengrundlage vergangener Verkaufszahlen und leitet daraus Bestellvorschläge für die Bäckereifilialen her. Der Kundenwunsch, d.h. das was die Verantwortlichen für die Bestellung letztlich entscheiden möchten wird dabei nicht außer Acht gelassen, sondern kann bei jeder Bestellentscheidung einbezogen werden, sodass Endkundinnen und -kunden, die in den Bäckereifilialen einkaufen,nie vor einer leeren Theke stehen.FT lässt drei Seiten profitieren: Umwelt, Umsatz und Kundenzufriedenheit. Bei der Umsetzung wird der Fokus auf eine schrittweise Umstellung gelegt, sodass alle Mitarbeiter der Betriebe in allen Bereichen mitgenommen werden. Verständnis und Begeisterung für die Software soll die Mitarbeiter dazu bringen, aus eigenem Antrieb an der Umstellung mitzuarbeiten.FT wird in mind. drei Großbäckereien in Deutschland eingesetzt, um die Bestellungen für deren Filialbetriebe zu optimieren. Im Rahmen von LOWINFOOD konnte die Benutzerfreundlichkeit von FT weiterentwickelt werden. So wurde auf der Grundlage von Kundenrückmeldungen in FT eine Funktion zur Handhabung wechselnder Sortimente hinzugefügt. Beispielsweise ändert sich das Kuchensortiment alle 2 Wochen und die Software muss die Daten für die Vorhersagen anders auswählen. FT zeigt jetzt auch detailliertere Wetterwarnungen an, z. B. wenn der erste sonnige Tag im Frühling erwartet wird, um die Bestellmengen entsprechend anzupassen. Außerdem verfügt FT jetzt über ein verfeinertes Regelsystem, das die Nutzer warnt, wenn die Retouren bestimmte Grenzen überschreiten.
Stakeholder dialogues are social innovations that deliver a shared solution to tackle a problem. This approach in the bakery sector has the aim to prevent the waste of bread. This collaborative approach may create a competitive advantage between the participants since they can find shared solution upon common problems. To obtain this, stakeholder networking activities are essential and should be improved.12 small bakeries located in the area of Viterbo, Central Italy, have joined round table meetings with the UNITUS researchers and the local branch of the Italian Confederation of SMEs.The conversation focused on how and why there is a waste of product in the bakery sector and what are the most wasted bakery products. Bakers also discussed the frequency and extent of surplus production, and the strategies to reduce it. During the meetings, the researchers acted as moderators, directing the conversation, and allowing the bakers to talk among themselves.Most bakeries claim that they do not produce relevant quantities of surplus or waste, one of them even said “I can write on each loaf of bread who will be the customer that will buy it!”. However, none of them has ever measured the quantity of surplus and wasted bread, thus lacking a systematic monitoring of waste. Also at the national level, the extent of bread and bakery waste is largely unknown.As a first action agreed within the stakeholder dialogue, a diary has been developed to measure every day the quantity of unsold common bread, white pizza, and a special bread. The assessment will last for several months to see in practice the extent of this waste.The stakeholder dialogue is part of the Work Package (WP) 3 in the LOWINFOOD project, and it aims to analyse innovations against loss of bakery products. The same activities are conducted in parallel in Italy, Sweden and Finland.
I dialoghi con gli stakeholder sono innovazioni sociali che forniscono una soluzione condivisa per affrontare un problema. Questo approccio nel settore della panificazione ha l'obiettivo di prevenire lo spreco di pane. Questo approccio collaborativo può creare un vantaggio competitivo tra i partecipanti per trovare soluzioni condivise su problemi comuni. Per fare questo sono indispensabili le attività di networking degli stakeholder e dovrebbero essere implementate.Dodici piccole panetterie ubicate nell'area di Viterbo, nel centro Italia, hanno partecipato ad una serie di incontri con i ricercatori UNITUS e la sezione locale della Confederazione Italiana delle PMI.La conversazione si è concentrata su come e perché c'è uno spreco di prodotto e su quali sono i prodotti da forno più sprecati. I fornai hanno anche discusso la frequenza e l'entità della produzione in eccesso e le strategie per ridurla. Durante gli incontri, i ricercatori hanno agito da moderatori, dirigendo la conversazione e permettendo ai fornai di dialogare tra loro.La maggior parte dei panificatori afferma di non produrre quantità rilevanti di eccedenza o di scarto di prodotti da forno, uno di loro ha persino affermato "Posso scrivere su ogni pagnotta chi sarà il cliente che lo comprerà!". Nessuno di loro, però, ha mai misurato la quantità di pane in eccesso e sprecato, non è stato mai effettuato monitoraggio sistematico degli sprechi. Anche a livello nazionale, quantità di spreco di pane e prodotti da forno è in gran parte sconosciutaCome prima azione concordata all'interno del dialogo con gli stakeholder, è stato così sviluppato un diario per misurare ogni giorno la quantità di pane comune invenduto, pizza bianca e un pane speciale. La valutazione durerà diversi mesi per vedere nella pratica l'entità di questi rifiuti.Il dialogo con gli stakeholder fa parte del Work Package (WP) 3 del progetto LOWINFOOD e mira ad analizzare le innovazioni contro la perdita di prodotti da forno. Le stesse attività sono condotte parallelamente in Italia, Svezia e Finlandia.