FoodFlow-1.0: A Smart IoT System for Manual Food Waste Logging for Hotels in the Med Region

Abstract Food waste is an unquestionable problem in the Mediterranean hospitality sector, where buffet-style dining and seasonal tourism contribute to large volumes of discarded food. Although, this is often perceived as an unavoidable consequence of service, hotel managers are currently not able to quantify the problem, much less to act on it. This paper presents FoodFlow-1.0, a smart IoT system designed to tackle the problem of food waste management in hotel kitchens by enabling manual recording of food waste, at each stage of the process chain, thus empowering hotel chefs, managers, and owners to exploit the value of data. Via a structured food categorization process has been adapted to local hotel menus, enabling kitchen staff track details of every food wasted. The system consists of an integrated hardware station, which includes an industrial-grade scale, a touchscreen, and a camera. The tablet software is connected to a cloud-based platform for submitting data and a web application provides a dashboard to data analytics and visualization. Despite strong initial staff resistance, the first contribution to build a strong dataset was achieved. Also, the intuitive food waste analytics dashboard convincingly revealed waste volumes and patterns, empowering evidence-based decisions that can foster sustainable kitchen operations and challenge rooted local attitudes toward food waste. By generating reliable data and enabling evidence-based decisions, it supports the second contribution that more sustainable kitchen operations contribute to changing long-standing cultural perceptions around food waste in the Med region.