The goal: cutting food waste in half

BIOVAAKA OY IS A PIONEER OF AUTOMATED FOOD WASTE MEASUREMENT: THE SMART SCALE SYSTEM DEVELOPED BY THE COMPANY IS ONE OF THE FIRST IN ITS FIELD IN FINLAND, AND IT MAKES IT POSSIBLE TO MONITOR FOOD WASTE GENERATED IN RESTAURANTS AND PROFESSIONAL KITCHENS COMPREHENSIVELY. IT ALSO PROVIDES DATA ON THE FOOD WASTE GENERATED TO SUPPORT THE MANAGEMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF RESTAURANTS. THE ROOTS OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE BIOVAAKA (BIOSCALE) SERVICE CAN BE FOUND AT THE SKINNARILA CAMPUS OF THE LUT UNIVERSITY AND THE LAB UNIVERSITY OF APPLIED SCIENCES, WHERE IT WAS ALSO INTRODUCED IN RESTAURANT AND TEACHING USE FOR THE FIRST TIME.

At the moment, bioscales are used already at more than 200 sites all around Finland. The services of Biovaaka Oy are used by restaurants, hotels and roughly 20% of cities and municipalities.

Making food waste visible

Bioscales are used at a total of three sites on the LUT and LAB Skinnarila campus: The Restaurant Skinnarila and LUT Buffet of Kampusravintolat Oy as well as the teaching kitchen of Bachelor of Hospitality Management students at LAB University of Applied Sciences.

Kampusravintolat monitors both the food waste generated in the kitchen as well as the plate waste generated in its restaurants, meaning the waste consisting of food left on the plate and not eaten at the restaurant. Bioscales placed at the dish return point in the restaurant show the customers how much food ends up in biowaste.

– In the beginning when the bioscales first arrived, approximately 35 grammes of food waste per customer was generated in our restaurants. With the bioscales, the amount of waste has decreased to approximately 20–25 grammes per customer. For comparison, one average-sized potato weighs roughly 50 grammes, says Director of Restaurant Operations Anni Varis, Kampusravintolat.

According to Varis, both the number of customers as well as the amount of food waste at the campus restaurants vary a lot. There are also differences between LUT and LAB as institutions.

– For example, one day we had 600 customers, and on the next day, there were as many as 1,100. The amount of food waste at LAB is slightly lower than at LUT. At both restaurants, we give people the opportunity to come back and get more food, meaning that you don’t have to put everything on your plate the first time.

For instance, the bioscales in the restaurants make it possible to see which dishes lead to the most waste. This allows us to reduce the amount of those dishes made. Today, Kampusravintolat makes food more often in batches, meaning we make more food as needed during the day. 

– The largest amounts of waste are generated on Fridays, and even though vegetable soup is an inexpensive and delicious dish, there was often a lot left over. We found this out by using the bioscales. The bioscales also make it possible to set different types of goals, such as generating no meat waste at all,” says Account Manager Laura Malinen, Biovaaka Oy.

– Even the little things and small changes have an impact when you multiply them by thousands. Especially now when foodstuffs have become more expensive. Relatively speaking, the prices have increased by 40%. The price of a kilo of waste also rises in relation to the costs, she continues.

The lessons learned turn into attitudes at work

In addition to reducing waste, the teaching kitchen for Bachelor of Hospitality Management students has also tackled costs. The bioscales in the teaching kitchen show not only the amount of waste in grammes, but also the value of the waste in euros.

– We hope that by showing the amount of money to the students, we can make them consider how they handle the valuable raw material. Our goal is to ensure that the students routinely think about what they can do with the side streams of food preparation, says Jukka Moilanen, who teaches the Bachelor of Hospitality Management students.

Reducing waste and utilising it more efficiently has become a major part of the food preparation process in the teaching kitchen. Before, all biowaste was collected in one single bag without weighing it, but now each workstation has its own collection bin, which is weighed. Before weighing, everything that can be used is used.

– We think about the further processing of biowaste starting all the way from onion skins. For instance, you can make chips, decorations for dishes or all kinds of snacks out of different kinds of skins and peels, Moilanen explains.

– As a monitoring tool, bioscales have also shown that different kinds of serving methods generate waste in different ways. For instance, we can see from the amount of waste whether the food was served on the plate or as a buffet lunch.

Moilanen hopes that everything that happens in the teaching kitchen will transform into attitudes when the students enter the working life.

– If the events at our restaurant have 35 customers, for instance, will the same formula work at a restaurant with 350 customers? The things that students will need to know how to do and manage and what they need to consider in the future is no simple calculation.  The students’ own observations and insights are crucial for learning.

A shared challenge

Food waste is a global problem, and it is necessary to find ways of solving it in all parts of the food production chain. The food services in Finland alone generate more than 60 million kilos of food waste per year. Approximately 15% of all edible food in the food chain ends up as waste. In the whole world, roughly 30% of all of the food produced becomes waste.

The European Union and the UN have set the goal of halving the amount of food waste by 2030. The goal can only be reached by working systematically to reduce waste.

– The Biovaaka service system is a part of the solution; it makes it possible to achieve the goals set in restaurants and professional kitchens. We have helped our customers reduce food waste by tens of percentage points, Malinen says.

For Biovaaka, entering the international market is a goal for the near future. The competition in the field has intensified, but Biovaaka has been able to meet the needs of customers of different types and sizes by expanding its range of services.

– In addition to the Nordic countries, there has been interest especially in the Central European market, which is a pioneer of the green transition.

In Finland, the Waste Act requires restaurants to report the total amount of food waste as well as the share of it that can be used as food, if possible. We have a light, browser-based solution for that, too. Our aim is to find suitable customers for us.

For more information, please contact:

Biovaaka Oy
Laura Malinen, laura.malinen@biovaaka.fi , tel. +358 50 547 3791

Kampusravintolat Oy
Anni Varis, anni.varis@lab.fi , tel. +358 40 672 5320

LAB University of Applied Sciences
Jukka Moilanen, jukka.moilanen@lab.fi , tel. +358 40 575 1560