LONDON—Winnow, the technology company behind Winnow Vision, the artificial intelligence tool helping chefs cut food waste in half, is announcing the completion of its series B round of funding at a total of $12 million. This follows a recent $8 million loan from The European Investment Bank (EIB), with the help of the Juncker Plan, which focuses on boosting investment to generate jobs and growth.
The company, with U.S. offices located in Iowa City, has recently made headlines in the country, having been selected as a food waste innovator and recipient of the Zero Hunger | Zero Waste Kroger Foundation Grant. Within the United States alone, an estimated 63 million tons of food is wasted every year. Winnow aims to continue growing in the market, with hospitality being a key industry, as there has been a significant focus on companies to act sustainably, with food waste being a large contributing factor to this.
The series B round included high-profile investment from Ingka Group, a strategic partner to the IKEA franchisee system, Mustard Seed, Circularity Capital, D-Ax and The Ingenious Group.
Goal is to Save Customers $1 Billion by 2025
Winnow Co-founder and CEO Marc Zornes says, “We are very excited about driving the business forward in our global fight against food waste and we are grateful for the continuous support of our investors. This year we launched our groundbreaking AI product Winnow Vision, and chefs using Winnow around the world are saving $33 million worth of food from going to waste annually. We have set a target to save our customers $1 billion by 2025, and this investment will accelerate our technology development and business development approach to help achieve this ambition.”
Launched in a single staff restaurant in 2013, Winnow has been adopted by more than 1,000 sites globally, and is now operating in 40 countries with offices in London, Dubai, Singapore, Shanghai, Cluj-Napoca and Iowa City. In 2019, The Financial Times ranked the company as the 78th fastest of Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies.
Winnow’s latest AI product Winnow Vision, the most advanced food waste technology on the market, has been developed to automate waste tracking, enabling chefs to run more profitable and sustainable kitchens. With global clients already adopting Winnow Vision, from IKEA stores through to the Armani Hotel in Dubai, the demand by companies to drive down food waste in 2019 is increasing. Kitchens using Winnow tend to see a 40 to 70 percent reduction in food waste within six to 12 months, driving food cost savings between 2 to 8 percent in total, which improves profit margins whilst doing the right thing.
Winnow Vision works by taking photos of wasted food as it’s thrown away, and uses the images to train itself to recognize what has been discarded. Winnow’s systems have already reached and surpassed human levels of accuracy in identifying wasted foods. This means for clients, over time, these systems will enable their kitchens to automatically register food waste without any human interaction. Food will be thrown in the bin and the data will be captured automatically.
