Winnow acquires Lumitics to develop AI food waste platform for the Asia-Pacific region
According to a statement on Thursday, Singapore’s Lumitics, a food waste technology firm with operations in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East, has been purchased by London-based Winnow, an AI-powered food waste solution provider.
Founded in Singapore in 2017, Lumitics tracks food waste in industrial kitchens by combining hardware, computer vision, and customer service. In addition to impact angel investors like Franck Courmont and PropertyGuru founder Steve Melhuish, the business was supported by Velocity Ventures, a hospitality technology venture capital firm run by Nicholas and Jonathan Cocks.
Lumitics customers will gain access to Winnow’s VisionAI platform, including its “Throw & Go” system, which uses AI to automatically identify and weigh food waste for removal without any scanning or manual input. Service will continue without interruption and customers will be supported through a phased transition to Winnow’s platform and hardware.
Winnow, founded in 2013, operates in more than 3,500 kitchens across nearly 100 countries and counts IKEA, Hilton, Accor, and Marriott among its clients. The company said its platform helps kitchens collectively save over $100 million in food costs per year and avoid more than 128,000 tonnes of CO2e emissions. It has offices in London, Chicago, Dubai, Singapore, and Cluj-Napoca.
Asia-Pacific is a crucial market for eliminating food waste, according to Winnow CEO and co-founder Marc Zornes. According to the executive, the acquisition helps Winnow reach its objective of avoiding $1 billion in food waste.
According to Lumitics’ co-founder and CEO, Rayner Loi, the company has gained extensive technical and operational understanding of how food waste appears in various cuisines, kitchen layouts, and hospitality settings throughout Asia-Pacific and the Middle East. According to Loi, integrating such local expertise with Winnow’s platform will improve its suitability for Asia-Pacific use cases.
