Collectiv Food: Managing food waste via innovative logistics & AI

City Harvest food donor Collectiv Food reduces food waste innovatively by using the logistical solution of its urban patented POD model, as well as AI to help with inventory and forecasting. Any surplus that does occur, for whatever reason, for the next-generation wholesaler is sustainably redistributed by City Harvest for London communities facing food poverty.

Collectiv Food has 3 key focus areas when it comes to its environmental impact. They are: 

1. Decarbonisation of the food supply chain

2. Transparency 

3. Food Waste

“Managing food waste is time-consuming. If you take your eye off the ball, food will become out of date, and unable to be redistributed.”

Collectiv Food is a next-generation wholesaler that delivers food to restaurants across London and Paris. The wholesaler’s patented “PODs” are shipping containers that are refrigerated and controlled using doors and key codes. They are located in ex-industrial sites that allow Collectiv to consolidate food in central points of London, ready for distribution across the following days to restaurants around the city.

How PODs works:

• Food is loaded up at Collectiv’s warehouse and is delivered to the PODs overnight when there are fewer vehicles.
• The next day, food is collected by electric vehicles such as e-cargo bikes and electric vans, and the last-mile delivery is done through them. This means that trucks and lorries aren’t spending all day sitting in traffic, congesting the streets of London to deliver to restaurants.

“Our PODs are points of distribution that help us deliver food in a green and sustainable way.

Collectiv Food: Prioritising high ethical and environmental standards

Transparency is a powerful tool to help supply chain stakeholders to make better choices. 

“We work with our suppliers at the outset of trade to get them to sign our producer code of conduct, which essentially means that they’re adhering to our expectations around our ethical and environmental standards in the supply chain.”

“We want to ensure that, because we’re in the business of buying and selling food, we’re not creating a great amount of surplus or waste as we operate.” Natalia Spinetto

Mitigating food waste with the help of City Harvest

“​We look to reduce food waste in our supply chain by having accurate forecasts, so we get that by talking to customers and using our data to learn in terms of demand patterns. We also utilise partners like City Harvest when our forecasts are less accurate for outdoor events or spontaneous events that can affect demand.”

“Working with City Harvest is a great way for us to essentially have a home for what we know will always be a kind of challenge for us to move as surplus. Being able to have that peace of mind, that the food that we are left with at times is not going to be binned, and actually it’s going to be going to people that need that food is really what what aligns with our values here at Collectiv Food.”