A trial in Tenerife has allowed hotels to cut the amount of food left over from all-inclusive buffets.
Technology from specialist firm Winnow has been installed which weighs and photographs each time an item is added to a food waste bin. It then uses artificial intelligence to identify it and predict the correct amount to be used in future.
Winnow claims savings of up to 20% in commercial kitchens, which it said was “often equivalent to total net profits”.
Matt Callaghan, easyJet holidays customer and operations director, said: “This is not about reducing customer choice, it’s about being smarter with some of the tools already there that too many partners do not know about.”
He added he was happy to share findings with the industry, adding: “The payback on this tech is rapid.”
Callaghan said 1.3 billion tonnes of food produced for human consumption globally was thrown away. “A third of all food is wasted, that’s 10% of carbon emissions.” Statistics like this were often overlooked, he said, in place of highlighting emissions from things like aviation.
Covid, he said, had led some hoteliers towards more sustainable food usage. He gave the example of a property in Antalya which switched to individual salad portions during the pandemic, putting out six to 12 at a time instead of one large bowl.
“That has had a marked reduction in food waste; it’s giving customers what they want but in a much more controlled way.”
He added easyJet holidays had “a rare opportunity to help the industry make a step change because of the size of the brand we carry”.
“We have a role to use our brand to educate others through the supply chain,” he said.
The operator has partnered with Oxford University on sustainability, which Callaghan said was “not a Tinder match often found”. The partnership included sending students to a mainstream Spanish destination for a month to examine best practice.
