Melco Resorts & Entertainment says it has managed to cut plate waste in employee dining areas by up to 35% following implementation of Artificial Intelligence system Winnow Vision.
According to a press statement issued Thursday, Melco recently collaborated with Winnow and the London School of Economics (LSE) on a project to combine Winnow’s new post-consumer waste measurement product, Winnow Sense – a touchless system designed to measure plate waste – with a study to monitor consumer behavior.
A series of interventions were designed by the LSE Department of Psychological & Behavioural Science, and the study concluded that anthropomorphized food – food depicted as coming to life and moving around via imagery – had significant impacts on behavior, ultimately leading to reduced levels of food waste.
Utilizing these findings in employee dining areas, where post-consumer waste was identified as the main source of food wastage, Melco was able to reduce food waste by as much as 35%, with qualitative feedback from staff showing a shift in behavior both at work and at home.
Melco said it is now in the process of exploring applications in consumer-facing dining areas.
“Given the global impact of waste on the health of people, food security and the planet, we take food waste very seriously,” said Denise Chen, Senior Sustainability Adviser of Melco.
“We began our partnership with Winnow AI technology to reduce food waste in the kitchens of our employee dining rooms. We were excited by the opportunity to partner with Winnow and LSE to trial awareness and communication campaigns to encourage colleagues to change behavior in relation to plate waste.
“We are pleased to be the first company to trial Winnow Sense and will be using findings from the study to further communicate to our colleagues to reduce plate waste on an ongoing basis.”
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