A new free online platform has launched this week to help hospitality, restaurant and catering professionals unlock one of the sector’s biggest opportunities – reducing food waste.
Reducing food waste can lower costs, improve efficiency, strengthen resilience, and reduce emissions, yet practical guidance is often difficult to find and apply. The Food Waste Decelerator has been created to help close that gap.
The free platform combines AI powered search across hundreds of expert resources, practical case studies, a directory of technology solutions and a global community of hospitality professionals – all available in more than 50 languages.
The Food Waste Decelerator was initiated by Ingka Group, building on its experience as one of the first major companies to halve food waste from production. It is built on Ubuntoo’s technology platform to combine curated content, case studies and quality assurance from WRAP with AI-powered search and practical tools designed for hospitality operators.
The hospitality and food service sector wastes an estimated 290 million tonnes of food each year and while the environmental impact is huge, so too are the opportunities. Every tonne of food wasted represents ingredients purchased, paid labour and avoidable pressure on already stretched business resources.
Estelle Herszenhorn, director of food system transformation at WRAP said: “Preventing food waste is one of the biggest overlooked opportunities for hospitality businesses, people and the planet. We know the actions that work – but what is key is enabling these actions at scale, in fast-paced environments. We support the Food Waste Decelerator because it puts credible and impactful tools and examples in the hands of those that can take the action needed.”
Karen Pflug, chief sustainability officer, Ingka Group, said, “Ingka was among the first major companies to reach SDG Target 12.3, halving our food waste from production already in 2022. By the end of FY25, we reached a 60.5% reduction compared to the 2017 baseline, equivalent to 47.5 million meals. With the Food Waste Decelerator, we want to make the practical knowledge that got us there available to the whole sector to enable more of us to act faster on solutions.”
Peter Schestraete, co-founder Ubuntoo, said: “The practical knowledge to act on food waste already exists — but too often is hidden across reports, tools and case studies. Combining our technology and expert network with WRAP’s content leadership makes that knowledge faster to find, easier to apply and grounded in trusted sources.”
The Food Waste Decelerator is available at foodwastedecelerator.org.
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