Every day 3 million Italians leave 50 grams of food in the canteen plate. The Trentino Behavix startup uses artificial intelligence to understand the causes: it is often stress, not food quality.
There is a food waste that almost nobody speaks, silent, systematic and daily. It takes place where food is organized on a large scale and served in a standardized way: school canteens, hospital, company, RSA, university. But also in the large chains of collective catering and in the self-service of the service areas. It is an invisible waste because it is distributed between millions of dishes every day. Still, its impact is enormous, both in environmental terms and above all, economic: reducing waste in the canteens means first of all to reduce costs.
According to the collective catering and nutrition observatory (Oricon), about 3.04 million Italians are eating in the canteen every day. Everyone leaves 50 grams of food on the plate. An apparently negligible quantity, but which, multiplied on a national scale, translates into 38 thousand tons of food wasted per year. A figure that makes you think and that pushed the startup Behavix, born in Trento in the Trentino Development technological pole, to look for solutions to face the problem at the root.
The IA against waste. Founded by the environmental engineer Massimiliano Carraro and the behavioral economist Stefania Malfatti, Behavix has developed a system based on artificial intelligence and behavioral analysis to understand the deep causes of food waste in the canteens. The idea is simple but revolutionary: understanding why food is left, not only how much.
“We didn’t want to limit ourselves to redistributing the waste – explains Carraro – but preventing them from becoming such”. The system developed by the startup uses a computer vision combination and data collection via a web app. On the one hand, intelligent cameras analyze the dishes that go back, recognizing the types of dishes and estimating the weight of the leftovers. On the other, users are asked directly because they have not finished the meal. And this is where technology meets the human aspect. “The added value of our system – underlines Malfatti – is in listening. We do not just measure ourselves: we are looking for the causes, which sometimes have to do with the emotional state, with the stress or with the time available to eat, not only with the quality of food”.
The results of the pilot project conducted in the university canteens of Padua are emblematic. Out of 3600 meals served per day, the average waste was 50 grams each. In four months he translated into 27 thousand euros of food thrown away. Thanks to the collected data, it was possible to trace the reasons for waste: a collapse in the satisfaction of the potatoes, for example, was linked to the change of the supplier.
Or, in 45% of the feedback, the reason for the food left on the plate was linked to stress or haste, not to the dish itself. To increase the involvement of users, Behavix has also introduced Gamification mechanisms in its app: prizes such as free coffee for those who complete the questionnaires have increased participation from 4% initial to over 20%. The entire system guarantees anonymity, but a voluntary registration method is already in experimentation, which will allow users to monitor their food behavior over time and companies to offer more personalized prizes. The potential of the project is enormous. Reducing food waste is not only an ethical or environmental objective, but a concrete economic lever for those who manage canteens and catering. And the possibility of detecting the state of psychological well -being of workers, students or degents, observing what and how they eat, opens unpublished scenarios also for the policies of companies, universities, hospitals.
Behavix, who benefits from European funding such as the Foodity and VRT call for the enhancement of Trentino research, now looks beyond traditional canteens. The goal, says Carraro, is also extending the system to the standardized catering of large chains, such as Autogrill or Old Wild West, where the uncertain turnout makes the forecast of consumption and the reduction of waste even more strategic. According to the estimates of the Italian Federation of Public Exercises, the food wasted every day in the catering services could reach 75 thousand tons. A mountain of food – and money – that ends up in the dustbin. Avoiding waste is not only possible, but it is better.
