Every year, dozens of tech start-ups are born in the Netherlands that have big dreams, but have to overcome technical obstacles to achieve them. In this article, we discuss what Orbisk encountered while developing its image recognition food monitor.
Food waste is a huge problem all over the world. About a third of all food produced is wasted, according to studies published in 2018. According to the WWF on an annual basis, this is a good 2.5 billion tons of food, for a value of 230 billion euros. Olaf van der Veen has seen first-hand how much food went missing in the trash after he was the last guest to leave his hotel’s breakfast buffet. From previous experiences working part-time jobs in the hospitality industry, he knew this was no exception and that the fact of the matter is that no one in the kitchen has any insight into exactly what ends up in the trash. If this is clear, it will be easier to deal with the problem, was his theory. For example, employees in the kitchen can purchase smaller quantities of certain foods.
