A.I. forecasting to reduce food waste - COVID-19 impact

英国酒店业每年产生超过100万吨的食物垃圾，相当于约30亿英镑的成本和超过450万吨的二氧化碳。与此同时，英国餐馆的平均利润率仅为3-5%，是英国利润最低的行业之一。COVID危机使这场经济斗争急剧恶化。通过有效减少食物浪费，餐厅可以将盈利能力提高高达2个百分点，同时大幅降低其运营对环境的影响。减少食物浪费的关键在于准确的需求预测。餐馆在向顾客出售菜肴前几天或几周就订购了易腐库存。鉴于大多数餐厅都依赖于严格的4周平均需求和直觉来做出采购决策，食品订单通常会超过真实的需求，从而造成食品浪费。Tenzo将研究开发一种尖端的预测工具，使餐厅企业能够准确预测客户需求。利用强大的人工智能算法，该工具将实现以下目标：* 根据历史销售、天气、公共活动和其他特征生成准确的餐厅销售预测 * 将每日预测分为项目级和每小时预测 * 将这些预测提供给一线工作人员（厨师、部门经理等）在一个用户友好的移动的应用程序中-使他们能够轻松地知道要准备多少食物：* 以及何时准备（例如，每小时要烤多少鸡肉）; and * order和when（例如，下周要订购多少鱼）。Tenzo的项目将专注于找到最准确的预测算法，并将其与用户相结合-方便易用的软件界面，确保前线员工在日常运作中减少食物浪费。到2024年，我们的工具每年可以减少英国酒店食物浪费超过38，000吨，二氧化碳超过175，000吨，餐厅成本超过2000万英镑。

The UK hospitality industry generates over 1 million tonnes of food waste each year, equivalent to approximately £3 billion in cost and over 4.5 million tonnes of CO2\. At the same time, UK restaurants yield a meager 3-5% average profit margin, making it one of the least profitable industries in the country. This economic struggle has been dramatically exacerbated by the COVID crisis. Through effective food waste reduction, restaurants can boost profitability by up to 2pp, while drastically reducing the environmental impact of their operations.The key to reducing food waste lies in accurate demand forecasting. Restaurants order their perishable inventory days and weeks before selling dishes to their customers. Given that most restaurants rely on rigid 4-week demand averages and gut instinct to make their procurement decisions, food orders are routinely in excess of real demand - creating food waste.Tenzo will research & develop a cutting-edge forecasting tool, which will allow restaurant businesses to accurately forecast customer demand. Utilising powerful artificial intelligence algorithms, the tool will achieve the following objectives:* Generate accurate restaurant sales forecasts based on historical sales, weather, public events and other features* Split daily forecasts into item-level and hourly projections* Provide those forecasts to frontline workers (chefs, section managers, etc.) within a user-friendly mobile app - enabling them to know easily how much food to: * prepare and when (e.g. how much chicken to grill every hour); and * order and when (e.g. how much fish to order for next week).Tenzo's project will focus on finding the most accurate forecasting algorithms and combining them with a user-friendly software interface to ensure frontline workers are empowered to reduce food waste in their day-to-day operations. By 2024, our tool could reduce annual UK hospitality food waste by over 38,000 tonnes, CO2 by over 175,000 tonnes and restaurant costs by over £20 million.