RESTAURANT TECH COMPANIES WANT TO MAKE IT EASIER TO BE SUSTAINABLE
sults. Norton said that one site was able to its decrease food waste by 80% just by increasing the accuracy of its food orders. “Our goal is to reduce 800,000 tons of food waste by 2025 and save the restaurant industry £100 million in costs and that's through using this AI algorithm forecasting platform to give restaurants an easier time kind of choosing the right food and order- ing the right amount and not having to throw away huge garbage cans full of food,” said Norton. Norton said that Tenzo differentiates itself from other forecasting companies by being easily integrated into tech platforms restaurants may already use. “You sign in and all of your data is adjusted and put into one easy place to see without having to like switch back and forth to other different platforms and have a list of Excel sheets to try makes sense of,” he said. MANAGING DATA One thing most of these technology companies have in common is their ability to capture valuable data. Budderfly, for instance, provides its customers with details on how their energy savings translate to reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Ferrera said this data is easily to access and understand. It also helps the team grasp what changes need to be made to reduce energy use and cut costs. “The Budderfly solution is not just, hey, we’re saving a couple of dollars. It’s really about, how do we make this sustainable long-term,” he said. Similarly, Copia provides its restaurant customers with an array of information, including how many pounds of waste they diverted from the landfill, how many meals were donated and what their carbon emissions offset is. The Cheesecake Factory, for instance, has tracked the impact of meals it’s donated using Copia. “In 2022, we donated more than 570,000 pounds of food to more than 700 local nonprofits, diverting it from landfills to give to those in need,” said Nick Sterling, director of sustainability at The Cheesecake Factory. “This helped to avoid almost 2.5 million pounds of greenhouse gas emissions.”
said. “It’s a win-win for everyone.” Additionally, Copia has a 99.9% match rate, which means if a business has food to donate, Copia can nearly guarantee it will find a home for that food. TENZO’S FORECASTING TOOLS Forecasting tech can also help oper- ations prevent food waste and save money. One UK-based company is doing just that with a system that helps restaurants forecast 30% to 50% more accurately, according to Elizabeth Norton, senior marketing manager at Tenzo. Tenzo uses AI algorithms that look at historical data sets as well as sea- sonality, events and weather to pro- vide restaurants with a report that pre- dicts how much inventory they should order. “Tenzo is what we call a restaurant performance OPS platform, which ba- sically allows restaurateurs to make data-backed decisions in real-time for their businesses, so they can improve performance in the day-to-day,” said Norton. The technology is mobile-first— Norton said that 70% of Tenzo’s users access the platform on their phones, making it “ideal for busy restaurateurs who are kind of always on-the-go: op- erators, directors and managers who have to move from site to site.” When it comes to sustainability, Tenzo’s technology has shown re -
fers its clients a fully automated food- waste tracking, prevention and redis- tribution platform, attacking waste from multiple angles. According to Kimberly Smith, CEO of Copia, simplicity and convenience were key considerations in developing the technology. “Our goal is to make it as simple as possible for businesses to do the right thing,” Smith said. “And so, that carries over into our technology. We regularly talk about how convenience is a crit- ical factor in supporting adoption for technologies like Copia.” Copia clients can track food waste with an app for the back of house, as well as donate surplus food to local nonprofits. Jeff LaTulippe, senior vice presi- dent of growth and innovation at True Food Kitchen, a Copia client, described the company as similar to a DoorDash or UberEats for food donation. When a restaurant employee would like to make donation, they simply re- quest a pick-up. The app then assigns a courier to pick up the order and de- liver it to a local nonprofit. LaTulippe noted that the only feedback he’s re - ceived on the program is that it’s very easy to use. According to Smith, Copia’s tech - nology presents numerous benefits for foodservice operations. “We’re making a positive social impact for communities in need by di- verting perfectly edible surplus food; we are reducing carbon emission off- set, so Scope 3 emissions and also returning meaningful tax deduction, so there’s a financial ROI for the busi - nesses that work with us as well,” she
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SUSTAINABILITY OUTLOOK 2025
PHOTO COURTESY: COPIA
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