Ever wondered how your hotel or kitchen can minimize food waste? Well, Novotel Amsterdam City did – but they stopped wondering and started taking action instead.

Minimizing food waste in a professional kitchen can be daunting. All the extra time needed for manual tracking is something most kitchens simply do not have. Novotel Amsterdam City’s kitchen team realized this early and started looking for solutions. That’s when Orbisk came into the kitchen with our automated AI food waste tracker. The results? Less food waste, and higher profit margins. Read on to find out how they minimized their food waste and maximized their profits.

How to minimize food waste with Orbisk

You may be wondering how a food waste tracking system helps reduce food waste. Don’t worry, that’s most people when they first hear about reducing food waste. Let’s go through how Novotel Amsterdam City used data from tracking their food waste to reduce it by 33% in less than 12 months.

Strategies Novotel Amsterdam City used to reduce food waste:

• Historic data is king
  • They gather as much information as possible about the type of banqueting groups whenever possible – For example nationality, the purpose of the meeting, the type of guests attending, and more. Different groups require different approaches to the food offerings.
• Past data for future purchases
  • Using the data from the Orbi, they make purchases more precisely, even down to half-kilo amounts. The whole team reviews this daily to find improvements and adjust the daily supply to allow for reuse. They also take more calculated risks in ordering quantities – the bigger the group, the more safely they can round down their order.
• Regularly review Orbisk photos with all employees 
  • They then create short-term action plans based on their findings
• Encouragement and motivation
  • When the teams get into the positive flow of using the Orbi regularly and can see their efforts are delivering real results, it’s important to encourage and maintain that momentum.
• Ensure there are always options for non-avoidable food waste
  • Nobody wants to end up with a freezer full of leftovers – Novotel Amsterdam City makes sure that there are options for non-avoidable food waste (e.g. composting)

Did you notice a trend? That’s right – data is king. When it comes to minimizing food waste, data is going to be your best friend and most valuable resource. Without data, it’s like trying to shoot a target in the dark… while you’re spinning around on a platform. So, stop spinning in circles, and turn on the lights by tracking your food waste with Orbisk. Just like Novotel Amsterdam City did. What results did they get from all these initiatives? Let’s talk about it.

Results of tracking with Orbisk

Let’s get right into it. In less than 12 months, Novotel Amsterdam City was able to:

• Reduce their food waste by 33%
• Saved over 3,300 kg of food
• Saved over €27,000
• Prevented over 10,000 kg of CO2 from entering the atmosphere

That’s the same as the amount of carbon absorbed by 10 acres of U.S. forest in one year. That’s almost unimaginable, right? Well, that’s the impact of food waste. Luckily, as you’ve read, there are ways to prevent all this, just like Novotel Amsterdam City did. Reducing food waste does not have to be an obstacle. It can be an opportunity.

Can your kitchen also benefit from less food waste?

The short answer? Yes. Every kitchen can benefit from reducing its food waste. By how much depends on how big your kitchen is. Luckily, the Orbi, our automated AI-powered food waste monitor, fits into any kitchen. Big or small. 

Using the Orbi is super simple. All you need to do is hold the food in front of the camera for less than half a second. The camera then takes a picture and the AI gets to work on identifying the food when it was thrown away, and why (Cutting waste, plate waste, overproduction, etc.). The Orbi is also the only food waste tracker on the market that can identify the waste stream (Gastronom tray, prep plate, buffet plate, etc.), giving you yet another layer of data to work from.

Take the next step and contact our sales team for a free consultation and demo meeting! Want to read some more success stories? Click here to read how Raffles Singapore was able to reduce their food waste by 29% and save over €9000 in only 9 weeks of using the Orbi.

Click the button below to schedule a consultation session with our sales team now!