Good food... should not be wasted!
What do Winnow, Bionor and the city of Milan have in common? An unwavering love for food, leading them to tackle one of the major issues of our time: food waste.
Did you know that food waste is a significant environmental and social problem? Let's take a look at some eye-opening facts and figures about it.
What is the scale of the issue?
According to the FAO’s State of Food and Agriculture (2019) report, about 14% of the world's food is lost after it is harvested and before it reaches the shops.
The UNEP’s Food Waste Index Report (2021) shows that an additional 17% of food is wasted in retail and by consumers, especially households. Food waste is higher in hotter countries, where high temperatures affect storage, processing and transportation.
So far in 2025, the global food loss1 or waste has reached an astonishing amount of 384.000.000 tons. (The World Count, 2025)
FAO estimates the amount of lost and wasted food could feed 1.26 billion hungry people yearly.
Approximately one-third of the food produced for human consumption -- roughly 1.3 billion tons -- goes to waste or gets lost annually (FAO, n.d.).
In 2022, more than half (54%) of the total European food waste was produced by households, accounting for 72 kg per inhabitant.
The remaining 46% was waste generated upstream in the food supply chain. Household food waste is nearly twice the amount of food waste arising from the sectors of primary production and manufacture of food products and beverages, where strategies exist for reducing food waste, for instance, the use of discarded parts as by-products. Restaurants and food services accounted for 9%, while retail and other food distributors were the sectors with the least amount of food waste (7%) (Eurostat; 2024).
Food waste isn't just about what we eat.
The loss and waste of food not only represent a shameful and often avoidable wastage of resources, but also contribute to 8-10% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In today’s linear system, enormous amounts of freshwater, chemical fertilisers, fossil-derived energy and soil are involved in the production of 7.1 billion tons of food globally. However, a significant portion of this food goes wasted… (EllenMacArthur Foundation, n.d.).
The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for the halving of per-capita global food waste at the retail and consumer levels and the reduction of food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses (SDG target 12.3).
Where does all the wasted food end up?
In urban areas, less than 2% of organic waste and its nutrients are collected, safely treated and reused. This leads to missed economic opportunities and adverse effects on human health, local ecosystems, and agricultural land.
In a Circular Economy:
1) food waste is prevented;
2) surplus edible food can be redistributed to people who need it;
3) inedible food by-products and human waste become inputs for new products.
Let’s see how it works…
1. Playing it forward and reducing food waste.
“In a typical commercial kitchen, up to 20% of all food purchased is thrown away, leading to lost profits, wasted resources and numerous social and environmental impacts” (EllenMacArthur Foundation, n.d.). Food waste costs the hospitality industry over 100bn annually (Winnow, n.d.).
Winnow has been working to tackle this issue by providing a simple way to measure, categorize, and analyze the root causes of food wastage.
Winnow Case Study - IoT and AI as Circular Economy enablers.
Winnow is a UK pioneering company that since 2013 has developed an innovative solution to reduce or prevent food waste in commercial kitchens. At the core of Winnow's solution there is a smart waste disposal system that combines IoT sensors, cameras, scale and AI.
The system uses an intelligent camera sitting on top where food is thrown away (typically a bin) and a weighing scale installed under it to automatically identify and weigh food items as they are discarded. The IoT-enabled hardware collects data on what food is being wasted, when and in what quantities. The company's real value lies in its analytics services. Winnow generates regular reports and charges a monthly service fee based on the size of the kitchen, in terms of total food costs.
The AI is trained to identify over 1000 food items automatically and to associate a cost to it. The collected data is then processed and analyzed in the cloud, providing detailed insights. These analytics help kitchen managers to make informed decisions about menu planning, portion sizes, procurement strategies and food preparation, ultimately leading to significant reductions in food waste and cost savings.
“The first insight experienced by many clients during the baselining period is that food waste is typically underestimated by a factor of two, leading to imprecise forecasting and financial planning”.
Outcome and results.
Winnow's innovative approach has proven highly effective, with clients typically achieving a 50% (on average) reduction in food waste and cost savings of 2-8%. Winnow technology currently supports over 2.700 kitchens worldwide. Since 2013, the resulting economic and environmental benefits are as follows:
clients saved $70 million in food costs,
50.000.000 meals have been saved,
87.000 tonnes of CO2 have been avoided (Winnow, n.d.)
By combining IoT hardware with AI-powered analytics, Winnow has created a powerful tool that not only tackles food waste but also improves operational efficiency and sustainability in commercial kitchens. IoT and AI are proving to be powerful enablers for the circular economy transition, not only in food waste management.
2. Turn food by-products into new things - bioenergy from UOC.
In a Circular Economy, nothing goes to waste - not even the oil used to cook those delicious fries!
Among the most dangerous waste we produce is cooking oil.
Used Cooking Oil (UCO) is generated when various edible vegetable oils (olive, palm, sunflower oil…) are employed to fry food items in households, hotels, restaurants… Rapid population growth is causing an increase in the consumption of vegetable oils and, therefore, of UCO. This is leading to significant environmental problems: UCO improper disposal, such as pouring it into sewers, drains, open spaces, rivers and forests can cause bad water pollution since it is not biodegradable and it does not break down easily in the environment. Instead, it can form thick layers on the surface of water, suffocating aquatic life, disrupting the ecosystem. Additionally, the oil can clog the filters of water treatment plants, making it difficult to purify the water. Moreover, when UCO is disposed of in landfills, it can release methane, a powerful GHG that fosters climate change.
Bionor Transformacion Case Study - Does biofuel smell like French fries?
UCO can be successfully converted into biodiesel by means of a simple chemical reaction called transesterification, performed using a variety of catalysts including basic, acidic and enzymatic. Bionor Transformación is one of the few companies using UOC for biodiesel production, processing annually about 80,000 tonnes of oil (Alfalaval,2008).
Bionor was founded in 2000 in Spain and it is 25% owned by the public sector and 75% owned by private companies. The company’s biodiesel production plant in Berantevilla, in northern Spain’s Álava region, opened in May 2003. Today, it produces 30,000 tonnes of biodiesel annually and has more than 70 distribution points at service stations, identified by the brand Bionor MX 15-Via Oil.
The company collects used oil from both restaurants and households. “Almost all Spanish restaurants have a collection system in place, but the domestic collection industry is in its infancy” according to Bionor’s internal sources.
The company’s original purpose was to take care of collected used cooking oil. “We had to decide what to do with it. Biodiesel was the answer, and that’s what we founded the company to do” (Alfalaval,2008).
Bionor adopted the circular economy practices all along the production process. It aims at minimising freshwater consumption by reusing water and at reducing the consumption of catalysts and methanol, very expensive and highly contaminant.
The main challenge with this kind of process is to achieve and maintain acceptable biodiesel quality from the used cooking oil – a raw material that changes characteristics from day to day.
The use of biofuel as a substitute for petroleum diesel is a valuable solution to the inescapable global issues regarding energy shortage and environmental pollution.
3. Redistribution of food surplus
A recent report published by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation estimated that for every dollar spent on food, society pays the equivalent of two dollars in health, environmental and economic costs. Cities, through their unique characteristics, assets, and capabilities, could play a key role in changing the modern, linear, food system.
The City of Milan Case Study – Sharing not wasting food
The City of Milan has undertaken a significant initiative to combat food waste through the creation of "Neighborhood Hubs" (“Hub di quartiere”). This project, launched in 2019, aims to recover and redistribute food surpluses to people and families in need, involving a network of NGOS, institutions, research centres and the private sector.
Neighbourhood Hubs are collection and storage centres for food from various sources, including supermarkets and local stores. These hubs not only collect fresh, cooked, dry food, fruits, vegetables and bread, but also implement actions to process food that is no longer fresh for compost production, thus promoting environmental sustainability and nullifying waste.
Outcome and results.
In 2023, the project recovered more than 615 tons of food, demonstrating its effectiveness in reducing food waste. The network has grown from 5 to 8 hubs, covering several municipalities in Milan and involving a total of 37 retailers. The project has received international recognition, including the Earthshot Prize 2021, confirming Milan as a global role model in the fight against food waste.
The Milan initiative is a virtuous example of how cities can address food waste through public-private collaboration, innovation and community engagement. Moreover, it is a bright example of how the CE transition can be more effectively tackled with a systemic approach.
Thank you for reading until the end! What actions are you taking to reduce household food waste? Do you know any positive examples of effectively tackling this issue?
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Food loss: food not harvested or food not authorised to be marketed for safety reasons.