ll-inclusive resorts using Winnow typically cut food cost by 2% to 8% by reducing buffet overproduction. The impact scales with food spend: at $5m annual purchasing, that’s $100k to $400k a year; at $10m, $200k to $800k.

The results across Winnow’s portfolio back that range. Royalton CHIC Cancun cut food waste 56% in six months at one buffet, saving $165,000 a year. Iberostar has deployed Winnow across 60+ resorts, achieving more than 80% reduction in total waste to landfill. Across 3,500+ kitchens globally, Winnow clients prevent more than $100 million in food waste each year and avoid 122,000 tonnes of CO2e – roughly two meals saved from waste every second.

Key facts

• 3,500+ commercial kitchens use Winnow across 90+ countries
• 2% to 8% typical reduction in food cost
• $100m+ in food waste prevented every year
• 122,000 tonnes of CO2e avoided annually (approximately two meals saved per second)
• IKEA restaurants alone have saved $37m+ through systematic waste reduction
• Resort kitchens waste an average of 12% of all food purchased – around 191g per cover per meal (Winnow, 2025 baseline data from 180 resort kitchens)
• 70% of hotel operators underestimate their food waste volume; 40% are not measuring it at all (easyJet holidays & Winnow Hotel Partner Survey, 2025)

How much food waste do resorts generate?

All-inclusive resorts generate large volumes of food waste because of how their buffets and kitchens operate. The combination of overproduction, multiple service points, and demand variability means a meaningful share of prepared food never gets eaten.

Four operational factors account for most of it: buffet overproduction to maintain visual abundance through service; variable occupancy, which makes it hard to estimate how much to prepare; multi-kitchen operations across the main buffet, specialty restaurants, and central kitchen; and different types of trim, including preparation waste and food prepared but not served.

Winnow data from 180 resort kitchens at baseline confirms that resort kitchens consistently generate higher food waste per cover than both economy/midscale hotels and premium/luxury properties. This is especially visible in post-consumer plate waste, which the all-inclusive buffet model compounds – but overproduction (23% to 57% of total waste) and preparation trim (20% to 42%) are the two categories the kitchen can directly address.

How much can resorts save by preventing food waste?

Professional kitchens that begin measuring and managing food waste typically see 2% to 8% reductions in food cost. The financial impact scales with purchasing volume.

Estimated annual savings by food spend and reduction level:

$3,000,000 in annual food spend:

• 2% reduction → $60,000 in savings
• 5% reduction → $150,000 in savings
• 8% reduction → $240,000 in savings

$5,000,000 in annual food spend:

• 2% reduction → $100,000 in savings
• 5% reduction → $250,000 in savings
• 8% reduction → $400,000 in savings

$10,000,000 in annual food spend:

• 2% reduction → $200,000 in savings
• 5% reduction → $500,000 in savings
• 8% reduction → $800,000 in savings

These results come when teams use specific waste data to adjust production, improve planning, and tighten purchasing decisions. Savings come from operational decisions, not from the act of recording.

What global results has Winnow achieved in food waste reduction?

Global key data:

• 3,500+ professional kitchens use Winnow worldwide
• Typical reductions of 2% to 8% in food cost
• $100m+ in food waste prevented every year
• Deployments in 90+ countries
• 122,000 tonnes of CO2e reduced each year
• Equivalent to roughly two meals saved from waste per second

The most prominent example is IKEA, where restaurants have saved over $37 million by reducing food waste in global operations.

What do real case studies show about food waste reduction in resorts?

Three documented examples, with verified numbers.

Royalton CHIC Cancun (Blue Diamond Resorts). Mexico / Caribbean. 456 rooms, 9 restaurants, 4,000+ daily covers.

A six-month deployment at Elements Gourmet Buffet cut food waste by 56%, exceeding the original 40% target. Specific operational changes included switching to live cooking for high-waste dishes, repurposing surplus proteins into ravioli and cannelloni, redirecting excess bread to staff meals, and using fruit peels in sauces and infusions.

Verified results: 56% reduction in food waste by value; $165,000 in annualised cost savings; 246.4 tonnes of CO2e prevented annually; 140,000 meals saved annually. The programme has since expanded to three additional Blue Diamond properties.

Iberostar Hotels & Resorts. Europe, Africa, and the Americas. 60+ properties.

Iberostar has deployed Winnow Vision AI across 60+ resorts as part of its Wave of Change sustainability strategy, with daily reports informing production decisions across kitchens. Preliminary 2025 data shows more than 80% reduction in total waste to landfill compared to 2021 across the group (Iberostar Group, 2026 preliminary data).

H10 Hotels (Spain). Seven properties. Structured food waste reduction programme combining digital tools with process changes: smaller batch cooking, adjusted portion sizes, increased team ownership. Results: 46% reduction in food waste; 860,000 meals saved annually; 1,500 tonnes of CO2e avoided.

How consistent are food waste reduction results across regions?

Results from food waste reduction are consistent across regions and operation types. Winnow’s technology is currently used in 3,500+ professional kitchens across 90+ countries, in hotels, resorts, universities, and large-scale foodservice operations across Europe, Latin America, North America, the Middle East, and Asia.

The consistency comes from the fact that the main causes of waste in professional kitchens are similar everywhere: buffet overproduction, preparation trim, food prepared but not served, and imprecise production planning.

The regulatory dimension: why the numbers matter more now

For resorts in Europe, waste reduction is no longer only a financial question. Spain’s Ley 1/2025 requires a 50% reduction in food waste by 2030 and a formal Food Waste Prevention Plan with quantified data – enforceable from April 2026. The EU’s revised Waste Framework Directive requires member states to introduce food waste prevention programmes by mid-2027.

The result: operators in affected markets who are not yet measuring waste are falling behind both on cost efficiency and on compliance readiness. The financial case has always been clear. The regulatory case is now too.

Can food waste reduction scale from a pilot to multiple properties?

Yes. Many programmes start as a pilot in one kitchen before expanding. Measuring waste lets organisations compare performance across properties, identify the most common waste causes, standardise operational processes, replicate improvements, and build effective team collaboration.

In multi-site operations, this visibility makes regional or global expansion possible. Over time, waste monitoring becomes a management tool that compares performance across kitchens and supports continuous operational improvement.

How resorts measure waste in practice with Winnow

For high-volume resort buffets, the system most operators adopt is VisionAI with Throw & Go. Staff throw food away the way they normally would, and the system identifies and weighs each item automatically through AI vision, with no scanning, manual category selection, or workflow change. Daily and weekly reports surface the highest-cost waste items, and the Winnow Hub analytics platform lets multi-property groups compare sites and track corporate reduction targets.

For all-inclusive resorts running multiple kitchens at scale, this combination is the basis of the 2% to 8% food cost reduction Winnow customers see.

Conclusion

For resorts evaluating food waste prevention initiatives, the numbers are no longer theoretical. Global data shows that when waste is measured effectively and integrated into operational kitchen decisions, food cost optimisation becomes a measurable, replicable result.

Sources and further reading

• Royalton CHIC Cancun case study
• A Practical Guide to Reducing Food Waste in Resorts
• Winnow for hotels and resorts

See what Winnow can do in your kitchen. Request a demo →

Source: Winnow

The new app enables Flashfood’s grocery partners to power faster, smarter and more efficient surplus operations

TORONTO, ON – May 12, 2026 — Flashfood, the leading marketplace for surplus groceries, today announced Flashfood For Partners, a new app for its retail partners. The app’s technology is designed to deliver better ROI within existing operations by powering more efficient and trackable shrink reduction. This grows the supply on Flashfood’s marketplace, increasing access to affordable groceries for Flashfood shoppers and keeping more food out of landfills.

Flashfood For Partners was built in close collaboration with Flashfood’s retail partners and designed to reduce friction and improve insights at all touchpoints: reducing the time it takes to post items and improving the reporting tools and functionality within the app. With enhanced posting tools and in-app reporting, retailers can post items faster, recover more margin, and further reduce shrink.

Key new capabilities on the app include:

• Bulk Posting: Enabling store associates to scan and post up to 10 items at once, in under 30 seconds.
• Smarter Scanning: Better barcode recognition, weighted item scanning, and auto-filled product information.
• Reporting Dashboard: A real-time reporting dashboard gives store teams a live view of the dollar value of items posted and sold, making it easier than ever to track ROI in real time.

“Every technology we build is designed to reduce friction and create more value on both sides of our marketplace. The new app is just the beginning,” said Yixin Zhu, VP of Engineering at Flashfood. “Retailers today rely largely on manual labor and guesswork to manage their surplus food, and that contributes to the billions of dollars of retail food waste each year. Our grocery partner app attacks both of those challenges by enabling store teams to post more food faster, and see in real time the dollar value of what’s posted and sold.”

Powered by Scandit

Flashfood For Partners enhanced scanning capabilities are powered by Scandit, a leader in smart data capture technology. By leveraging Scandit’s Smart Label Capture, the app instantly captures and processes multiple barcodes and product details with high accuracy. This reduces manual input and minimizes posting errors. Store associates can scan items more efficiently, with support for bulk posting workflows and automatic best-by date capture directly from product labels, helping teams save time while improving data quality and consistency.

About Flashfood

Flashfood is on a mission to feed families, not landfills. The app marketplace connects shoppers with fresh produce, meat and other groceries at discounted prices. By partnering with retailers across North America, Flashfood offers shoppers nutritious staples at affordable prices, and reduces the amount of food going to landfills. To date, Flashfood has rerouted more than 160 million pounds of food from landfills while saving its shoppers more than $400 million on their groceries. Flashfood is a B-Corp certified company currently partnered with more than 2,000 stores across North America. For more information, please visit www.flashfood.com.

Source: Flashfood

During seven years of partnership with the Flashfood waste reduction app, Loblaw Companies has saved money by diverting food from landfills nationwide.

Loblaw Companies Limited — one of Canada’s largest retailers — has been utilizing the Flashfood app, which offers discounts of up to 50% on groceries nearing their sell-by date with the goal of diverting food waste from landfills, since 2019. 

During that time, Loblaw says it has saved more than $295 million and diverted more than 105 million pounds of food. In 2025, the food and pharmacy retailer says this partnership saw more than 21 million pounds of food diverted from landfill and saved customers more than $58 million on groceries. 

This supports Loblaw’s goal of sending zero food to landfills by 2030. The partnership also continued to expand its reach during 2025, growing by more than 92,000 new Flashfood shoppers nationwide.

“Reducing food waste takes practical solutions at scale – and it works best when it’s easy for our customers to take part in,” said Jonathan Carroll, senior VP, superstore operations and enterprise champion of food waste reduction initiatives at Loblaw. “Through our partnership with Flashfood, shoppers can purchase good food at a discounted price before it goes to waste, helping keep it out of landfill while getting great value on everyday groceries.”

[READ MORE: Flashfood upgrades app interface, shopping features]

First launched at Maxi grocery stores in 2019, Flashfood is now available in more than 900 Loblaw grocery stores and franchise locations across Canada, including select No Frills, Maxi, Real Canadian Superstore, Real Atlantic Superstore, Loblaws, Real Canadian Wholesale Club, Zehrs, Your Independent Grocer, Provigo and Dominion stores in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Other retailers operating in the grocery space that have piloted and deployed Flashfood in the past few years include Kroger, Earth Fare, Save Mart, Giant Food, Meijer, Hy-Vee and SpartanNash.

“Loblaw has been an exceptional collaborator from the beginning of our partnership together,” said Jordan Schenck, CEO of Flashfood. “They have consistently demonstrated industry leadership by embracing innovation that improves the lives of their shoppers. Their commitment to our shared mission has brought Flashfood to every province across the country and helped thousands of Canadians put fresh, affordable food on the table.”

Source: Chain Store Age