Our journey starts here......
I started the company in 2018 together with my co-founder Andreas Pringle. The reason was that I saw a huge waste of food that was wasted unnecessarily. At the same time, there was a lack of a simple measurement tool for the chefs to measure their food waste that provided quick feedback. Since childhood, I have always enjoyed being in the kitchen with my mother and grandmother. I trained as a chef in the early 90s and started my professional career at a lunch restaurant in Gothenburg. The owner taught me the importance of taking care of everything in the kitchen.
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"The owner taught me the importance of taking advantage of everything in the kitchen."
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After two seasons of skiing and a chef job in Austria and France, I managed to get a job with Leif Mannerström at Restaurant Sjömagasinet in Gothenburg, then one of the country's best restaurants.
At Sjömagasinet, I once again learned to take advantage of everything that was bought in and also to always deliver at the highest level every day.
After that, I started a restaurant with two friends. At the restaurant, I made use of all the skills that experience, colleagues, and managers taught me. Unfortunately, I could not achieve a good work-life balance. So I sold my share of the restaurant after three years and started working in other restaurants while guest lecturing at restaurant schools and training chefs.
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"For the first time, I saw a system that could measure food waste."
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In 2012 I was appointed head chef at a brand new restaurant in Gothenburg. It was an important turning point in my life. For the first time, I saw a system that could measure food waste. But after two years, no progress was made when it came to reducing food waste.
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“I propose a concept where we would recalculate the waste
from the number of kilos to the number of kroner instead.”
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Instead, I proposed a concept where we would recalculate the waste from the number of kilos to the number of kroner and at the same time start serving food on a small plate instead of a large one. To then analyze and present the figures to my boss every Friday. My boss and my colleagues liked the concept and I offered my colleagues a ''fika'' if they could reduce food waste for the next month. It was a huge success and together we managed to reduce food waste by 20% in the first three months.
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“It was a huge success and we managed to reduce
together food waste by 20% in the first three months.”
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I read about the Gothenburg model for reducing food waste in school kitchens. This gave me further inspiration and the idea arose to apply the model in restaurant kitchens. I presented my idea of developing an application that reduces food waste and converts it into measurable numbers to my friends, family, and industry colleagues.
After some evening courses in sustainable business models at Yes Box in Gothenburg, we got the chance to pitch our idea to some companies and investors. GU Ventures saw a future in us and agreed to be our first investor. We did a test run of our system with Comfort Hotell and Gothenburg City Theater and the system proved to contribute to a significant reduction in food waste. With this success, Andreas began to develop our system to be able to scale up our business and help more customers.
At the same time, we were also admitted to the incubator Founders Loft, where together with several different start-up companies we received help with business development, advice, and inspiration to build the company further.
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"the system proved to contribute to a significant reduction in food waste."
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During my years as a chef and restaurateur, I have always tried to share my knowledge with new chef students. Now I have found people with the same passion for a sustainable future who are part of the Generation Waste team. What our teachers taught us, we want to pass on to the next generation. Therefore, education and knowledge from farm to table is incredibly important to pass on for us, as part of measuring and reducing food waste.
We are on the way to depleting our soils. We pollute our seas and lakes. This contributes to a great concern for the future that we at Generation Waste share with many. Our mission therefore also includes training all the chefs and restaurateurs with whom we collaborate. The goal is for both chefs and guests to understand that food waste is pure money that ends up right in the bin and negatively affects the climate every day. Our courses are based on my and my colleagues' kitchen experiences as well as research and reports from the FAO, the Swedish Food Agency the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency SLU, and RISE. Our goal is to change a small part of the world with a smart measuring tool and a common knowledge base with more chefs!
Daniel Oddhammar
Founder & Head of Business Development, Generation Waste