Waste Management
How NANDO And Dussmann Are Transforming Food Waste From Estimates To Real-Time Data:
Italian startup NANDO is collaborating with facility management leader Dussmann to revolutionise the manual measurement of food waste through tools powered by Artificial Intelligence, computer vision, and real-time monitoring.
NANDO (Re Learn Srl), an Italian startup specialising in intelligent waste management through Artificial Intelligence, has announced the results of a pilot project carried out in collaboration with Dussmann, one of Europe’s leading facility management providers.
Active in over 17 countries and serving more than 80 clients worldwide, NANDO supports major facility management operators such as Dussmann, ISS, CBRE, Sodexo and JLL, delivering advanced solutions to monitor and optimize waste streams across multiple sectors including food service, urban environments, industry, and offices.
Food waste in collective catering is a structural and largely invisible problem. Global data confirms the scale of the issue: 1.05 billion tonnes of food were wasted in 2022 alone, with an estimated cost of around $1 trillion per year and an impact equivalent to 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions (UNEP, 2024).
In the United Kingdom, food waste costs the hospitality and food service sector approximately £3.2 billion annually (WRAP, 2023). Italy faces a similarly concerning situation. According to the Observatory on Collective Catering and Nutrition (Oricon), more than 100 tonnes of food are discarded every day in collective canteens alone, often still perfectly edible, amounting to over 38,000 tonnes per year (ENAC Informa, 2025).
In response to this challenge, the European Union has introduced binding measures. The 2025 revision of the Waste Framework Directive, aligned with the Farm to Fork Strategy and the Circular Economy Action Plan, sets mandatory targets to be achieved by 2030: a 10 percent reduction in waste in processing and production, and a 30 percent per capita reduction at retail and consumer level, explicitly including restaurants, food services, and households (European Commission, 2025).
Within this context, the solutions developed by NANDO provide a concrete response. Through automated image analysis, Artificial Intelligence recognises food types, estimates their weight, and delivers real-time insights via a dedicated dashboard, including key metrics such as meals prepared and served, waste volumes, and operational and environmental performance indicators.
NANDO.App addresses the issue of post-consumption waste measurement. In most canteens, plate-waste is either weighed manually, with significant margins of error and operational effort, or not measured at all. Designed specifically for school canteens, the app allows operators to photograph plate-waste in designated bins divided by course (first courses, main courses, and sides). The AI automatically analyses the images, identifying fill levels, volume, food type, and estimated weight.
38 fmuk
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