Necta against Food Waste: Data analysis in the fight against food waste

Millions of people suffer from hunger. At the same time, tons of food are wasted worldwide. The UN World Food Programme (WFP) aims to combat this problem, ensuring access to food while simultaneously reducing food waste. Raising awareness among retailers and consumers about more sustainable food practices is essential to achieving this.

The company necta has set itself the goal of developing strategies to reduce food waste in the care and healthcare sectors. This involves analyzing data from recipe specifications, actual consumption, and the sustainability costs of ingredients. The necta against Food Waste project at the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences is creating interfaces to integrate consumption data from patient-specific dietary records into the necta database and to quantitatively measure the reduction in food waste. Every ingredient and meal from the necta recipe database receives a score, the so-called Eaternity Score, which enables optimization steps towards sustainability.

The project, led by FH-Prof. Dipl.-Ing. Peter Kieseberg, is based on the principles of Security and Privacy by Design to meet the highest data security standards. Machine learning components and food waste reduction methods are used to better predict actual consumption, identify food waste early on, adjust portion sizes, and optimize purchasing. necta also provides support in recipe management, warehousing, production planning, and menu planning.

The project, jointly conducted by the St. Pölten University of Applied Sciences and the company necta, promotes the sustainable use of food and saves costs in nursing and hospital facilities without compromising food quality. This can reduce food waste and support the UN's sustainability goals.