"We Can Automatically Track And Analyse All Food Thrown Away"

Writer for Gründermetropole Berlin, Stefan Kny asked three questions to Anastasia, co-founder of KITRO, a startup part of METRO Accelerator for Hospitality 2017.

Please introduce yourself and your company.

The KITRO team is comprised of co-founder Anastasia Hofmann, co-founder Naomi Mackenzie, and Elliot Salisbury who joined the team as Head of Technology. Together we are dedicated to tackle the issue of food waste in the food and beverage industry. To achieve this, we are providing restaurants and canteens with a fully automatic food waste management solution. Using a hardware and a software we can automatically track and analyse all food that is thrown away. Based on the information gathered we provide users with reports outlining their food waste. Growing the awareness towards the peak areas of waste, both in terms of weight and cost, we identify the sources of the waste to empower customers to change their operational inefficiencies. By taking informed action to reduce food waste users benefit from a reduction in food cost, disposal cost, wasted resources as well as an increasing CSR image.

Anastasia

How did you come up with the idea?

The idea for KITRO was inspired by our personal experiences in the food & beverage (F&B) industry as we observed the large amounts of avoidable food that is thrown away on a daily basis. Our work experience in kitchen and service positions combined with our educational background (International Hospitality Management) gives us great insights and understanding of the issues faced within this industry. This information has allowed us to develop a product that will not only be extremely impactful on the environment, but will also be tailored to the work environment in which it is used.

What are your expectations of the Program?

We aim to find the right product-market fit and define the core value proposition through structured customer interviews and potentially some pilots. Furthermore, we are looking to prepare for our first financing round while we simultaneously grow our professional network in the food and beverage industry as well as in the entrepreneurial community.

Full article is available here in German. Check out Gründermetropole to learn more about food and accelerator topics in Berlin’s area.