Food brands and food charities have come together to pilot an AI solution to redistribute the equivalent of up to 1.5 million surplus meals.

With 4.6 million tonnes of edible food, which is equivalent to 10 billion meals of food, wasted in the UK each year, 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.

The project, part of Innovate UK’s BridgeAI initiative, will see the consortium 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 (formerly The Wonki Collective) technology, delivered an 87 per cent reduction in edible food waste at a single Nestlé factory, over a two week period.

Simon Brown of Sustainable Ventures, 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. We are here to bring together corporates with climate tech startups, finding ways to derisk the process and enable sustainable, innovative and commercial solutions to enter the market. This project is only the beginning; watch this space.”

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