Hellmann’s reveals AI tool to reduce food waste

The tool was developed in collaboration with Google Cloud.

To use the tool, people can scan the food in their fridge using their mobile phone and upload it to the app. The tool then uses AI to identify the ingredients and provides food recipes to match the ingredients.

Hellmann’s has said it designed the Meal Reveal in response to an issue it terms “fridge blindness”, which is when households have a fridge full of ingredients but aren’t able to create meals from what is there.

Laurence Lafont, vice president, strategic industries EMEA, Google Cloud, said: “Our generative AI technology has the power to create everyday solutions for people everywhere. As part of our longstanding partnership with Hellmann’s, we were excited to create the innovative solution, Meal Reveal, to overcome the persistent challenge of not seeing the possibilities of the food in our fridge.

“In its nascent stage, the more people use Meal Reveal, the more the tool will learn ingredients in our fridges and help provide the best recipes to use up what we already have.”

Food waste

According to Hellmann’s, 4.7 million tonnes of household food waste is thrown away each year in the UK, which is an average of eight meals a week.

The company reports that fresh fruit and vegetables are the most common food to be thrown away.

Hellmann’s stated that every day in UK, homes throw away “approximately 2.9 million potatoes, 1.4 million tomatoes and the equivalent of 2.1 million carrots^[c]“.

‘Straightforward’

Christina Bauer-Plank, Hellmann’s global vice president, said: “People never set out wanting to throw food away. Food waste is an unintended consequence of our busy lives, where we look in the fridge after a long day and see disparate ingredients but nothing to eat. We saw an opportunity here to create a straightforward, easy to use tool. Meal Reveal is powered by the latest Google technology where a simple scan of the leftover ingredients lets you see the delicious potential in your fridge, in the palm of your hand.”

To find out more about food waste, visit the National Letsrecycle.com Conference on 6 March at QEII Centre in London. To book tickets to attend or for more information please click here.