ImPerfect Foods
“One of the biggest challenges in social change is articulating the impact of the work.”
Around 740,000 tons of solid food and drinks is generated by the commercial and industrial sector
Food waste and scoring system to reduce waste and raise awareness in the City of Edinburgh
Challenge
I’mPerfect Foods is a social enterprise offering product development, consultancy, and advocacy services. The start-up was seeking business development opportunities within the City of Edinburgh. They wanted to know how to take their business out of the start-up stage and prime itself for growth.
Solution
A waste scoring system will deliver food waste statistics and ratios in real time. Leveraging I’mPerfect Foods’s vast network of organizations aimed to help Edinburgh achieve its vision of a zero waste future, the start-up has an opportunity to be a leader in food waste education, advocacy, and consultancy.
Research
Market research and landscape analysis revealed there are existing advocacy groups within Edinburgh who educate the public on food waste and preventative measures; however, there is no system in place to provide real, measurable results on how much food and resources are wasted within the City.
To gain an insight into the needs surrounding food waste management, Zero Waste Scotland held a focus group comprised of companies from the hospitality sector to discuss their challenges in managing food waste. The most common issues raised were:
Lack of accreditation scheme for the hospitality industry
Need for simpler and stricter enforcement on waste regulation
Difficulties in menu planning and portioning
Lack of government incentives
Lack of data collection system for food waste
The hospitality industry represents 7% of all commercial and industrial food and drink waste, which is the highest relative to other sectors including health, social care, and education.
Interviews with leaders in the hospitality industry indicated a strong surge in demand for a food waste management system. Around 740,000 tons of solid food and drinks is generated by the commercial and industrial sector, including restaurants and hotels, to accumulate 55% of all food and drink wasted.
Solution Design
The opportunity for I’mPerfect Foods is to develop a food waste tracking system to help restaurants within the hospitality industry better manage their food waste. Restaurants could then use the information to bridge the gap between food needed and food wasted.
The food waste tracking system prints an infographic on the amount of money each establishment has thrown in the bin, the number and weight of items gone to waste, as well as any other metrics the user programs into the system. In turn, this will initiate any best practices within the community and create a crucial conversation on food waste.
With Scotland’s Zero Waste initiative, there is an opportunity to build a relationship with government bodies to provide financial incentives to spur greater use of the system.
All data collected will be relayed to local government bodies to help the city create tax incentives, craft future policies, and develop regulations and formal processes around food waste; thereby strengthening its government partnership and establishing itself as a leader in this space.