[SUMMIT RECAP] How AI is Aiding the Fight Against Food Waste

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly seen as a game-changing technology that can help significantly reduce food waste. Yet, there have been very few real-time, systemwide assessments of how AI is actually being applied.

To bridge this information gap, ReFED partnered with Michael Wolf, the editor-in-chief of The Spoon, to conduct research for a landmark new report titled, The Food Operating System: How AI is Being Deployed Across the Food System to Reduce Waste.

At the recent ReFED Food Waste Solutions Summit, Wolf shared the core findings from this first-of-its-kind report, mapping out exactly how AI is transforming food waste management.

Here are the key takeaways from his Summit presentation.

1. Foodservice: Using AI in Commercial Kitchens

For nearly a decade, restaurants and commercial kitchens have used technology to track what food is being thrown away. It gives chefs and kitchen managers the data to change their ordering habits and stop overproducing meals—and it’s helping businesses save millions.

During his presentation, he shared a quote from kitchen technology expert Andrew Shakman from Leanpath to show how data leads to real change:

"It's great to be able to understand what is happening with our food, but AI is increasingly helping us to take action and reduce the amount of waste."

2. Retail: Making Ordering More Accurate

Stores keep their shelves packed with excessive amounts of food to make displays look attractive to shoppers. This practice wastes food. However, rising food costs are forcing grocery stores to rethink wasteful displays, thanks to AI insights.

AI software helps stores analyze complex sales data to make more accurate ordering decisions. Wolf highlighted the startup Afresh, which has helped grocery stores save over 200 million pounds of food. He explained how small mistakes in ordering can add up to huge problems across a grocery chain:

"Even if you're a few percentage points off of every ordering decision, across thousands of store departments, it compounds into millions of pounds of food waste per year."

3. Food Processing and Supply Chains: Moving from Reactionary to Anticipatory

A lot of food waste happens before items ever reach stores. But upstream waste is difficult to notice. AI is now giving food companies visibility into these hidden areas. In factories, computer vision systems check meat and produce to improve cutting efficiency and product yield. In shipping, sensors track food temperatures and truck health.

Instead of waiting for a refrigeration truck to break down and ruin a shipment, AI models look at historical data and live signals to predict machine failures before they happen. Wolf noted that this shifts the entire industry away from old, reactive habits:

"AI is taking supply chain and cold chain from reactionary to anticipatory. Imagine if we can know that a food truck is going to break down in a week because of all these signals, and we can actually do something about it before we waste thousands of pounds of food."

4. The Home Kitchen: Changing Consumer Behavior with Smart Devices

Home kitchens are the largest single source of food waste. They are also the hardest areas to address because they require consumer behavior change. However, new health trends are starting to alter how people buy and consume food. Wolf noted that the growing popularity of GLP-1 weight-loss medications is causing many people to eat smaller portions, which creates an opportunity to be more mindful of what they buy and what they throw away.

New smart kitchen appliances use AI to track the food families discard. These devices give households clear data on their cooking habits, which informs users on how much—or little—food to purchase. Wolf mentioned his success using a residential food recycler made by the company Mill:

"What they're finding is they use this [AI device] to create insights. And these insights are actually causing people to waste less food. I heard from Mill that users saw a 20% decline in food waste."

Watch Michael Wolf’s full recorded presentation to learn more about how AI is reshaping our food waste management.