Reducing food waste: The key to sustainable and cost-effective canteen operations

Food waste is a significant challenge in creating sustainable canteens. It's not only an environmental problem, but also an unnecessary cost that has a negative impact on the operating budget. For service providers, it is therefore important to ensure that canteen operations are both cost-effective and sustainable. Although this requires effort, good routines and insight can help reduce the negative effects of food waste.

Hybrid working models: A new challenge for canteen operations

The hybrid working model, which is now the norm in many companies, results in large variations in the number of visitors to the canteen. This makes it difficult to predict how much food will be prepared each day, often resulting in food waste. The solution lies in developing smarter, more proactive solutions that can predict the number of visitors and adjust the amount of food accordingly.

Knowledge and awareness reduce food waste

Promoting awareness among employees about the importance of reducing food waste is a good place to start. Educating on how to best handle surplus food and raising awareness of food waste can create a culture of sustainable practices. Menus can also be adapted to use up leftover ingredients, further helping to reduce waste.

Use of analysis tools for precise predictions

To achieve higher efficiency, analytics tools that collect data on canteen visits, number of dishes sold, and other relevant factors can be deployed. With algorithms and machine learning, this data can be used to develop predictive models that accurately forecast future visits and food demand. The more data collected, the more precise these models become, and they can detect patterns that are difficult to see with human analysis alone.

Digital tools make canteen operations easier

Running a sustainable and cost-effective canteen requires good planning. Digital tools that collect and analyze canteen data that give you accurate forecasts, making it possible to implement targeted measures that reduce food waste and costs without compromising on quality. At Izy, we're working on prediction models that can predict your sales for up to four weeks. 

The Izy app: A tool for sustainable canteen operations

Many of our customers use the Izy app to raise awareness of food waste among their tenants. If too much food is made one day, the surplus food can be sold at discounted prices via the app. 

Read more about Izy for service providers here

More benefits with the Izy app

Canteen is just one of several features in the Izy app. It also offers solutions for booking meeting rooms, ordering conference meal and visitor registration, making life easier for property owners, service providers, tenants and employees alike.