Reducing food waste in commercial kitchens - LH München

Commercial kitchens providing meals for schools and hospitals often find uneaten food being left behind, but are left in the dark about exactly what food items are disliked by their customers. This not only leads to wasted food, which negatively affects the environment, but is also problematic from a business perspective as it affects the financial performance of the kitchen.

For a fresh perspective on how food waste can be measured within kitchens, the InnovationLab of the IT department of the City of Munich commissioned the Munich University of Applied Sciences (HM).

A team, consisting of business and IT students, with support from their professors, developed the system WasteNoBite to tackle food waste in commercial kitchens by generating valuable insights on wasted food types through computer vision and machine learning algorithms.

The prototype utilizes a Raspberry Pi camera to provide accurate and reliable data on the wasted food items. This data, presented on an intuitive dashboard, empowers commercial kitchen managers to optimize their menu planning and operations more effectively – resulting in a reduction of food waste and notable cost savings.

The Project was carried out as part of the Co-Innovation Lab at Munich University of Applied Sciences.