Winnow System

Makes it quick and easy to monitor food waste in commercial kitchens, empowering catering teams with the insight to reduce food waste, enhance operational efficiency and increase profits.

What it does

  • A complete system to weigh, categorise, and report on kitchen food waste
  • Throw all food waste into one bin
  • Quick, 3-step categorisation process on the touchscreen
  • All data is stored securely in the cloud
  • Daily and weekly data reports sent directly to your inbox

How you benefit

  • Easily capture, on an ongoing basis, granular data on the food waste you are generating
  • Use that insight to take pro-active steps to prevent and reduce food waste
  • Increase your profitability - on average customers have increased their food gross profit margins by 2-6 percentage points
  • Meet your duty of care under environmental legislation to take all reasonable measures to apply the waste hierarchy

Additional information

A clever logging-system, pre-programmed with your menu and ingredients, to make the food waste data capture process quick and easy, and provide you with valuable information to activate changes.

According to extensive research conducted by WRAP, the UK produces around 15 million tonnes of food waste each year at a total cost of around £19 billion. Approximately half comes from UK households, costing every UK household on average £700 a year.

The UK Hospitality and Food Service (HaFS) sector contributes 920,000 tonnes of food waste to that total, costing the sector £2.5 billion. However, 75% of this food waste is avoidable, and could have been eaten. Only 12% is currently recycled through the likes of composting or anaerobic digestion.

WRAP advocates a simple 4-step process that HaFS organisations can follow to take action on food waste:

  1. Measure and monitor
  2. Develop an action plan
  3. Review progress
  4. Share your good work

The Winnow System makes adopting this approach really quick and easy with minimal impact on your day to day kitchen operations. Using the data obtained from day to day use of the Winnow System enables you to identify and implement positive changes to reduce food waste and increase profitability in a range of areas, typically:

  • Menu planning
  • Demand forecasting
  • Procurement
  • Food storage
  • Food preparation
  • Portioning and serving
  • Customer behaviour

If you would like more details about the Winnow System please get in touch

How it works

Purpose-built technology and software to make food waste monitoring achievable in even the busiest of kitchens.

Recording your waste food

  • A touchscreen tablet is linked via Bluetooth to a scale on which the kitchen food waste bin is placed
  • Staff simply drop food waste into the bin
  • The weight change on the scale triggers the data capture process
  • The quantity of food waste discarded is displayed
  • The staff member then categorises the food waste in 3 quick touches
  • The Winnow System immediately feeds back the cost of that food waste

Analysing your data

  • Receive daily reports into your inbox with details of the previous day's food waste
  • Simple graphics break down the sources and quantities of the food that was thrown away
  • The reports will highlight the main food wastes by value and weight
  • It also further details the top contributors to the main sources of waste
  • You can then target reduction strategies to those key areas and food items

Case studies

The Bingham

Serving locally-sourced, sustainable produce, the hotel minimised stock spoilage and saved £109 per week.

Friends House

Prepared-not-served waste fell by 94% by using measured data to change cooking practices.

Potli

An Indian food bazaar reduces food waste by 1.6 tonnes per year, with an annual saving of £13,529.

The Breakfast Club

A high-volume, fast-turnover operation reduced pre-prepared food waste by 80%.

Crieff Hydro

A four-star luxury hotel with five restaurants cuts food waste as a percentage of sales from 9% to 5%.

Restaurant Associates

An executive dining service cuts food waste by half, saving 50 tonnes of CO2 emissions annually.