Marc Zornes, the co-founder and chief executive officer of Winnow, a London-based startup launched in May 2013, presents the new technology as an opportunity for hospitality companies to improve their bottom line. The tool, “waste-meter”, is a large electronic scale which promises to cut restaurant waste in half by weighing produce and providing chefs with detailed reports about what is wasted.
They are helping mostly commercial kitchens of restaurants, schools, hotels and caterers to identify where food waste happens, including those of French hotel group AccorHotels and U.K. food service provider Compass Group Plc.
Winnow hopes that this touch-screen technology will act as awareness builder about the issue of food waste: the entrepreneur who invests in that model and scales it up, will make important changes, solving the problem in a meaningful way. The costing operation could even inspire chefs to rethink menus, make dishes rotation or redesign food presentation.
The annual subscription fee for a basic meter costs around 1.400 $ with an expected annual savings between 6.000 and 10.000 $, increasing gross profit margins by 2-6%. The CEO insists also on the idea that with food also money is thrown in the trash, so Winnow guarantees a double convenience, due by an environmental perspective combined with an economic benefit.
