Food waste prevention startup Winnow wants to give every kitchen the tools it needs to stop wasting food.
ReFed, a nonprofit dedicated to ending food loss, calculates that $77 billion worth of food is wasted in full-service restaurants each year. Winnow wants to help cut into that number by using artificial intelligence technology to reduce food waste.
The global startup, which was founded in the United Kingdom and has made Chicago its U.S. and North American headquarters, landed a $10 million Series C round this week that will be used to help scale the business.
To date, the food waste prevention startup has raised 32 million euros — about US$34.5 million at today's exchange rate.
"Every kitchen has the opportunity to prevent food waste, but one of the biggest barriers for kitchens in actually addressing the issue is making it easy and not labor-intensive to be able to gather data around what's wasted in a kitchen and understand what to do about it," CEO Marc Zornes told Chicago Inno.
Winnow's technology uses AI to better understand what's being wasted in the kitchens it works in, and then applies advanced analytics to give chefs the data to help cut that waste.
First launched in 2013, Winnow has partnered with Hilton and Compass Group, among others, and a recent collaboration with Ikea resulted in a 50% reduction in food waste across 400 Ikea stores worldwide.
"Believe it or not, Ikea is one of the largest restaurant chains in the world," Zornes said. "Where we work with them is with all of their in-store food provision — that's everything from the cafe to the Ikea meatballs to the staff restaurant they have in the back."
Working with Winnow has saved the furniture and home goods store $37 million while saving 20 million meals from the trash, according to Zornes.
