Food waste quantified. Source: WinnowTech company Winnow is using computer vision and machine learning to highlight avoidable food waste in commercial kitchens with its smart trash can.

Recognizing that roughly $1 trillion worth of globally produced food is wasted each year, Winnow is updating its food waste cans, which currently house a set of scales and are connected to a touchscreen display for inputting food data, with computer vision and machine learning. The updated system, which has been dubbed Winnow Vision, can now identify food discarded in commercial kitchens by virtue of a motion-sensing computer vision camera that automatically captures the images of the discarded food, determining what it is and estimating and displaying how much it is costing the company to dispose of it. Additionally, the system issues reports highlighting what foods are being wasted at the highest frequency and should thus be cut back on.

Originally, the bin, which was developed a few years ago, was just a system of scales and display technology that required commercial kitchen staff to input data about the foods being discarded. Once that data had been entered, Winnow’s cloud analytics assigned values to the discarded food. The version updated with Winnow Vision, however, identifies the discarded food like fruits and vegetables automatically. Yet, some more obscure food items tend to stump the system, still requiring manual input from kitchen staff. Consequently, Winnow acknowledges that the system still needs to be trained on less obvious food items. To train the system, commercial kitchen staff can input information about the discarded food, selecting from a list of food items that appear on the screen. The process of training the system to automatically recognize the foods in question could take anywhere from 200 to 1,000 images, according to Winnow.

“Food waste is a global issue, and one that kitchens around the world are struggling with,” said Winnow CEO Marc Zornes. “Without visibility into what is being wasted, kitchens are wasting far more food than they think. By understanding and reporting food waste’s very real costs — both to the bottom line and the environment — Winnow Vision empowers chefs to take action.”

Currently, the manual systems are in use by thousands of chefs around the world, saving an estimated $30 million worth of food from landfills, according to Winnow. The updated version has been trialed by a number of companies, including IKEA’s Ireland and U.K. stores, reportedly reducing their annual food waste by 50%.