World leading brands and food charities have come together to pilot a first of a kind AI solution to redistribute the equivalent of up to 1.5 million surplus meals. 4.6 million tonnes of edible food, which is equivalent to 10 billion meals of food, is wasted in the UK each year. Sustainable Ventures have brought together Bristol Superlight, FareShare, FuturePlus, Google Cloud, Howard Tenens Logistics, Nestlé UK&I and Zest (formerly The Wonki Collective) to develop a solution to help get more of the good-to-eat food that is currently being wasted to people across the UK.
The groundbreaking “AI food redistribution” project is part of Innovate UK’s BridgeAI initiative - which provided a £1.9 million grant which is match-funded for cutting-edge projects intent on harnessing AI to drive productivity and innovation. The consortium will develop and pilot an end-to-end AI led solution that, over the course of the project, will redistribute up to 700 tonnes of quality surplus food - the equivalent of up to 1.5 million meals. Trials throughout the project are also estimated to prevent up to 1,400 tonnes of CO2 being emitted and deliver up to £14 million of cost savings.¹ Earlier trials of the Zest (formerly The Wonki Collective) technology, delivered an 87% reduction in edible food waste at a single Nestlé factory, over a two week period.
The collaboration sees the development and piloting of Zest’s (formerly The Wonki Collective) integrated AI powered platform that will connect food manufacturers, logistics providers and charities - redefining supply chain efficiency. The integrated AI powered platform leverages Google Cloud’s BigQuery and Vertex AI platform to streamline and accelerate the process of matching available surplus food, including products and ingredients, to where there is demand. Bristol Superlight’s integrated AI/Machine Learning (ML)-driven logistics system enables the quality of surplus food to be measured and tracked throughout its delivery journey.
Once tested, the “AI food redistribution” solution could be applied at scale across the food supply chain, and offers commercial and charitable opportunities for the entire sector. The collaboration has demonstrated the immense potential of climate tech innovation to deliver environmental, social and economic benefits.
Esra Kasapoglu , Director of AI and Data Economy, Innovate UK
“This IUK Bridge AI initiative highlights how strategic funding, collaboration, and entrepreneurial spirit bring together innovators from a wide range of industries—food, logistics, tech, climate, charity, and venture building. Together, they've developed an innovative AI solution that aims to transform food sourcing and distribution across the UK, cutting waste, reducing carbon emissions, and lowering costs. This pioneering project is just the start, laying the foundation for future innovations that will drive circular economy models and advance sustainability efforts.”
Simon Brown, Corporate Innovation Partner of Sustainable Ventures, said: “We believe in the power of collaboration. Bringing together this fantastic group of stakeholders will reduce the time and risk taken to develop this new AI food supply chain management platform, whilst providing a market ready solution that can be rolled out across the industry. We are here to bring together corporates with climate tech startups, finding ways to derisk the process and enable sustainable, innovative and commercial solutions to enter the market. This project is only the beginning; watch this space.”
Dr Emma Keller, Head of Sustainability Nestlé UK & Ireland, said: “As the world’s largest food manufacturer, it is important for us at Nestlé to set an example on food waste. This exciting cross-industry initiative builds on work we have undertaken over the last decade to tackle food waste and will enable us to further optimise surplus within our operations. With the country suffering from historically high food poverty and food insecurity rates while food waste continues to rise, focusing on this is the right thing for us as a business to do.”
Dini McGrath, Co-Founder of Zest (formerly The Wonki Collective), said: “Our mission from day one has been to empower food manufacturers to design out food waste, and we’ve always known this vast challenge requires collaboration. We’re ecstatic to be working with some incredible powerhouses to support us in achieving our vision. As with most things in life, collaboration is key—together, we are stronger. This milestone brings us closer to our shared goal of building a more transparent and sustainable food system.”
Simon Millard, Director of Food at FareShare, said: “We are enormously grateful to all the partners involved in this exciting project. For 30 years FareShare has been bringing together partners from across the food and manufacturing sectors to help bridge the gap between food insecurity and food waste, and this innovation will make a huge difference. Over 8,000 charities and community groups across the UK already rely on food redistributed by FareShare to help strengthen communities across the UK. By unlocking new efficiencies in systems, we will be able to get more food to those groups and create greater social impact.”
Consortia Partners and Roles:
Sustainable Ventures:
Role: Programme Manager and Design Lead
With more than 850 climate tech companies supported through its ecosystem, and over 3000 in its wider network, Sustainable Ventures is Europe’s leading climate tech hub. Founded with the vision of a world in which climate change and resource scarcity are addressed by commercial solutions - Sustainable Ventures brings together climate-tech innovation with corporates, public sector and charities to accelerate the development of transformative market solutions for the net zero transition.
Zest (formerly The Wonki Collective):
Role: Subject Matter Expert and Solution Lead
The UK’s leading redistributor of surplus ingredients within the supply chain, Zest (formerly The Wonki Collective) has designed an AI B-2-B Software as a Service platform to help food and beverage manufacturers manage surplus foodstock. They will be developing their existing software to include new demand insights and food streams.
Nestlé UK&I: Reducing food waste | Nestlé UK & Ireland
Role: Food Manufacturer
Nestlé is the world’s largest food and beverage company. With more than 2,000 brands ranging from global icons to local favourites, Nestlé is present in 191 countries around the world. Nestlé UK&I is the key provider of surplus food for redistribution throughout the project.
Howard Tenens Logistics: https://www.tenens.com/
Role: Logistics Company
Howard Tenens Logistics is one of the largest, independently owned and operated logistics company in the UK. It prides itself on delivering outstanding service and mutual value to its customers and has a reputation for being at the forefront of the sustainability agenda; helping its customers transition to a Net Zero future. HTL will be trialling an electric vehicle for the pilot.
Bristol Superlight: https://www.bristolsuperlight.com/
Role: Logistics Technology Provider
Bristol Superlight is reinventing middle-mile logistics with its zero-emissions OV-1 vehicle and proprietary AI/ML-driven digital infrastructure technology. BSL’s underlying “Chain of Trust” innovation, powered by OV-1’s unique Cloud-connected zonal data architecture, enables a closed-loop quality management solution to provide assurance to all stakeholders in the logistics value chain.
FareShare: www.fareshare.org.uk
Role: Food Charity SME and recipient of redistributed surplus
FareShare is the UK’s leading food redistribution charity harnessing the power of food to change lives. We take good-to-eat food that would otherwise go to waste, and ensure it reaches people in need via our network of regional partners, over 8,000 local charities and thousands of volunteers. By redistributing surplus food to those who need it most, we strengthen communities and reduce food waste, a significant driver of the U.K.’s greenhouse gas emissions. During the last financial year, 2023-24, FareShare redistributed the equivalent of over 134 million meals - four meals every second. The 56,000 tonnes of food we redistributed stopped 100,000 tonnes of COe2 going to waste. Throughout the project, FareShare will be identifying where there is demand for surplus food throughout its charity network and ensuring this is redistributed.
Google Cloud: https://cloud.google.com/vertex-ai / https://cloud.google.com/bigquery
Role: Technology Partner (Cloud and Artificial Intelligence)
Google Cloud is the new way to the cloud, providing AI, infrastructure, developer, data, security, and collaboration tools built for today and tomorrow. Google Cloud offers a powerful, fully integrated and optimized AI stack with its own planet-scale infrastructure, custom-built chips, generative AI models and development platform, as well as AI-powered applications, to help organizations transform. Google Cloud are providing technical support and advisory to both Zest (formerly the Wonki Collective) and Bristol Superlight to enable the build and development of their solutions on Google Cloud.
Futureplus:
Role: Impact Measurement
Multi award-winning sustainability and ESG management and reporting company. Futureplus are providing their expertise around impact measurement and reporting throughout the programme to ensure the value and impact is demonstrable and quantifiable.
Corporates needing partners to create solutions to net zero can find out more about the support they can receive from Sustainable Ventures by visiting https://www.sustainableventures.co.uk or contacting Emily Barrett on [email protected]
¹Calculations made based on WRAP research, Food surplus and waste in the UK - key facts, Updated January 2020.