Tackling food waste and sustainability with AI

In recent years, there has been a growing interest in using technology, such as AI, to address these critical concerns. AI has the potential to reduce food waste and promote sustainability throughout the food supply chain. Electronic Specifier spoke to Svante Göthe, Head of Sustainability at RELEX Solutions, to explore how AI is being used to tackle food waste and sustainability, and the potential benefits it can bring to our environment and society.

The concerns surrounding food waste

Food waste is a massive issue that plagues the modern world, with a staggering amount of what we produce never ending up being consumed at all. Tackling this issue is something of global concern, with nations, companies, communities, and individuals taking up the mantle of responsibility to address such a widespread concern.

For Göthe, “The biggest concern is just how big it is. I think most people don’t even realise the numbers behind it. Overall, globally, roughly one-third of all food that is produced for human consumption ends up not being consumed. It ends up being thrown away or wasted somewhere along the supply chain.” This highlights the considerable problem we are facing as a species.

Beyond just the initial waste factor itself also lies its sustainability question, with food production contributing massively to greenhouse emissions across the supply chain, from farming to transportation. “If we look at the environmental effects of producing food, between 8-10% of all greenhouse gases in the world comes from producing these,” commented Göthe. When compared to other crucial areas, like road transportation, which counts for around 12-15% of global emissions, it puts into scale just how big of an issue this is.

Crucial areas of impact

So with food waste being such a damning problem, how can we address it, and where should we even start? Göthe explained some of the key areas of impact for tackling these problems, noting two specifically.

“The first part is the supply chain itself, from the farm all the way up to distribution. The remaining part is all direct food waste which happens in retail, wholesale, service, or households.”

From here you can analyse each section to find the key parts food waste occurs, “For example, fruit and veg, which accounts for somewhere between 40-50% of all food waste, for that type of product, typically the biggest single points of loss is in the very beginning and the very end.

“A lot of fruit and veg is thrown away at the farm or at the retail due to never being sold to consumers,” explains Göthe.

Göthe also made it clear that this problem is not directly down to something like a “lack of demand, but rather a lack of good planning,” which is often a misconception made. Rather, Göthe explained that what he and his team at RELEX have found is that it is more often than not down to things like overproduction, lack of knowledge in the saleability of products, and poor management of products in stores. These are the areas which need to be targeted to truly address the problem of food waste across the board.

How can AI assist in these goals?

AI is one tool that can help massively when it comes to analytics, problem-solving, and data crunching, and this is precisely what RELEX’s approach includes.

“The retail, wholesale, and manufacturing part of the supply chain is where we mainly operate.

“There are many small errors which can lead to big problems and bigger amounts of food waste [in these sectors].”

Using AI here to analyse and report, you can have “more accurate planning, which gives you more accurate demand forecasting, which allows you to plan your inventory better.

“You will see better results because you will have the right amount of inventory and less spoilage.

“The best part about this is when we start going upstream in the supply chain,” explained Göthe. By starting at the end of the supply chain and working back through it, RELEX and its AI method can identify the root problems, meet them at different points in the supply chain, and address them to completely cut back certain sources of food waste.

Hand in hand with sustainability

“Food waste is exactly that, it’s waste. Wasted resources, it’s not worth it. Being able to cut back on it links directly to reducing your carbon footprint,” says Göthe. In essence, any efforts made to counteract waste in any form, whether that be wasted food, materials, or labour, will directly go hand in hand with meeting sustainability goals.

As Göthe made clear: “The United Nations has sustainable development goals and one of them, number 12, states that food waste should be cut in half by 2030 and many companies are still behind this target.” By utilising tools like AI and addressing problems throughout the food supply chain, this goal becomes much more achievable of a prospect.

How AI is being used in the field

“At the very core of it all, is the demand forecasting,” notes Göthe. There are millions of things affecting demand on a constantly dynamic, day-to-day system. Göthe even says that factors such as “which day of the week it is, what the weather is like, is there an event happening” all play a part in determining the forecast.

“We need something to make sense of it all, and that is the AI systems and algorithms that go with it,” states Göthe.

Additionally, there is also something the team at RELEX refers to as ‘consumer behaviour modelling’ or ‘consumer data modelling’ algorithms, which are constantly learning how and why consumers buy products, and how products behave in different stores in regard to expiry dates, demand and other key factors to further address waste concerns.

The challenges and highlights of AI implementation

Given that the method is utilising what has only fairly recently become a more mainstream service, AI, Göthe noted that one of the biggest changes faced by his company is “change resistance now so that we can start working with new methods.”

There are also economic concerns which raise challenges, given the turmoil of the past few years. “Companies tend to be a bit more careful doing new investments,” he says. However, Gothe also reports that RELEX is a lucky case, in which it can “showcase our hundreds of successful implementations.”

By far the greatest highlight for the RELEX team is their ability to contribute and address a massive problem faced in the world in a successful and proven way. “It is really inspiring to do something where we can actually help.”

On top of this, RELEX is proud to offer solutions which can help a noble cause whilst also “delivering measurable value.”

“We have had many, many great customer testimonials, customer cases and stories about where we have reduced waste.

“We are typically able to reduce waste of our customers by 10-40% depending on the case.”

“We have been on a great growth trajectory for 20 years now and it doesn’t look like stopping,” explains Göthe, demonstrating the significance and growing need for the work RELEX is doing.

As a final note, Göthe commented: “I think these are exciting times for AI, we’ve been using AI machine learning for 15 years but it’s only in the last five years, and especially the last six months, that it feels like it has really caught the public eye. It’s very exciting to see the exponentially rapid growth and development of these new technologies and techniques.

“I think there are many, many interesting things to come in the future.”