Founded in 2019, Orbisk is responding to the challenges of corporate environmental responsibility by offering a turnkey solution to combat food waste. It was during a stay in a hotel that one of the founders of the solution, Olaf van der Veen, noticed that a large quantity of food was being thrown away at the end of the buffet breakfast service. This realisation prompted him to create a long-term solution for hotels and restaurants, which can not only weigh the waste, but also analyse and find solutions to reduce it.
In an interview with Le Journal des Palaces, Marion Vasselle, Head of sales Southern Europe for Orbisk, explains the conditions and the benefits of using Orbisk for luxury hotels.
Journal des palaces: How did Orbisk start?
Marion Vasselle: Every year, 1.3 billion tonnes of food are wasted around the world, which represents around a third of all the food produced. This not only wastes energy and resources, but also contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation, soil degradation and water pollution.
Created in 2019 in the Netherlands, Orbisk's primary mission is to make the global food system more sustainable. In doing so, it is tackling one of today's major challenges: food waste. The idea behind Orbisk came from one of its founders, Olaf van der Veen. He noticed that uneaten food on buffets was being thrown away at the end of services, so he set himself the task of finding a way of improving this phenomenon. Bart van Arnhem and Richard Becks joined Olaf's project. This is how the monitor, capable of recognising and recording food waste, came into being.
Our aim is to help hotel and catering professionals reduce their environmental impact and the costs associated with food waste.
Could you describe the solutions offered by Orbisk?
Orbisk uses cutting-edge technology to reduce food waste at source. We have designed a monitor that uses image recognition technology to automatically identify the category of food thrown away, the quantity, the time of day and the origin of the waste. This data can then be accessed online via a personalised dashboard, enabling people to play an active role in reducing food waste. By understanding the reasons behind these losses, identifying their origin and taking preventive measures, our customers can reduce their waste by an average of 30-50%: the environmental and financial impact is considerable.
Our solution has the advantage of being very easy to use and requires no special training. Our solution includes:
A camera with image recognition technology
An integrated, connected scale that records food weights
Automatic recognition of over 2,000 ingredients
An interactive online dashboard
Recognition of sources of waste (saucepan, plate, tray, etc.)
100-day integration period: support from one of our coaches
Ongoing technical support
Full equipment maintenance
How does it work?
plug & play: simply plug in the monitor, and it's ready to use!
Register your waste: present your waste to the monitor. It only takes half a second for the monitor to scan your waste, and the data is then automatically uploaded to the dashboard.
Analyse your waste on your online dashboard and set targets.
Monitor waste trends and the impact of actions taken.
How is Orbisk an innovative solution in the fight against food waste?
Orbisk stands out as an innovative solution in the fight against food waste thanks to several key features and functionalities.
Orbisk uses advanced technologies such as computer vision and machine learning to identify, quantify and categorise food waste. This AI-based approach enables greater accuracy in waste monitoring and management.
One of Orbisk's strengths is its ability to provide real-time data on food waste. Businesses can instantly monitor and react to waste trends, enabling them to adjust their processes accordingly to minimise losses.
The Orbisk dashboard is very easy to read and intuitive, making food waste monitoring and management accessible to all levels within an organisation. This encourages employee engagement in reducing waste.
Finally, we have a customised solution for all types of kitchen.
How does Orbisk respond to companies' CSR challenges? What results are you seeing from your customers?
Here are some of the ways in which Orbisk responds to CSR challenges:
Reducing food waste: Orbisk offers a technological solution for measuring, monitoring and reducing the food waste generated by companies. By minimising food waste, Orbisk helps companies achieve sustainability goals, contributing to CSR by reducing environmental impact.
Optimisation of resources: by identifying food waste trends through its technologies, Orbisk helps companies to optimise their purchasing, storage and inventory management. This can lead to a more efficient use of resources, which is a key aspect of CSR.
Tracking environmental performance: we provide analytical data that enables companies to track their environmental performance in relation to food waste in real time. This provides greater transparency and helps companies to make more informed decisions about sustainability.
Awareness and education: By implementing and using our technology, employees are made aware of the issues surrounding food waste. This helps to create a CSR-focused corporate culture.
Regulatory compliance: By adopting practices to reduce food waste, companies using our solutions can comply with increasing food waste / organic waste regulations.
In short, Orbisk meets the CSR challenges facing companies by helping them to adopt more sustainable practices, reduce their environmental impact, optimise their resources and raise employee awareness of these crucial issues.
What results are you seeing from your customers?
Our customers reduce their food waste by an average of 30-50% over the first 2 years of using our solution.
Which luxury hotels in France and abroad are you working with? What are the requirements of these customers?
In particular, we have framework agreements with the Accor and Hyatt groups. So we work with many luxury hotels (Sofitel, Fairmont, Pullman, Raffles, Hyatt…) as well as French palaces. They don't have any particular requirements compared to other customers. On the contrary, they are increasingly aware of the issues surrounding food waste and the need to remedy this as quickly as possible, while trying to accommodate their guests' expectations.
What are the logistical requirements, etc. for installing your solution?
Once the customer chooses to implement our solution in their establishment, we send them the monitor(s) via a transport company.
Our solution is Plug & Play, so all you have to do is place the monitor under the food waste bin and plug it in to start scanning the waste and using the solution. It couldn't be simpler! Our monitor is 172 cm high, 22 cm deep and 65 cm wide, with a maximum load of 100 kg. Connection is simple, with a 150 cm power cable. Maximum power consumption is 36 watts, with an average of 11 watts.
Please note: we have other solutions, without the base under the bin (scale), which can be fitted to smaller kitchens/collection points.
What are your next development projects?
We are currently present in more than 25 countries and intend to develop our presence further in order to increase our impact around the world.
We're continuing to develop alternative solutions to our classic monitor in our constant quest to satisfy and meet the needs of all kitchens (pedestal-mounted or wall-mounted monitor without scales, monitor adapted to rails in self-service outlets, etc.).
As a journalist and luxury hotel expert inspired by the men and women who embody it, Vanessa aspires to enhance and sublimate the beauty and elegance of palaces through her writing. "In a palace, simplicity serves the quest for excellence" she admires.
