Case Study: IKEA cuts food waste with Winnow Vision

How IKEA UK&IE Is Fighting Food Waste With Artificial Intelligence

IKEA UK&IE faced the challenge of significantly reducing food waste across its store kitchens as part of its ambitious "Food Is Precious" sustainability initiative. To help meet this goal, the company partnered with vendor Winnow to implement its Winnow Vision artificial intelligence system, which was designed to measure and analyze the food being discarded.

The solution from Winnow used a camera and smart scales to automatically identify wasted food and calculate its financial and environmental cost. This AI-driven visibility allowed kitchen teams to adjust production volumes and target specific waste issues. As a result of implementing Winnow's technology, IKEA UK&IE cut its food waste by 37% and saved 800,000 meals from being thrown away in 2018 alone, translating to £1.4 million in cost savings. Winnow was deployed across all of IKEA's UK and Ireland stores.

IKEA

Hege Sæbjørnsen

Country Sustainability Manager