Abstract
According to the United Nation Environment Develop report «roughly 30 percent of the food produced worldwide is lost or wasted every year» [1]. Target 12.3 of the United Nations Agenda 2030 specifies to halve per capita global food waste at retail and consumer levels by 2030 and to reduce food losses along production and supply chains, including post-harvest losses.
This series focuses on the innovative start-up Planeat.eco, a young Italian platform that aims to fight food waste by offering its customers ingredient kits containing everything needed to prepare different recipes or ready-made courses without any waste.
Planeat.eco: Go Grocery Shopping Without Waste
The no-waste platform
Planeat.eco is a startup that aims to fight food waste by offering its customers, who can choose in a modular and flexible way without signing up for minimum subscriptions or ones that oblige them for months, ingredient kits containing everything needed to prepare different recipes. Ingredients already ready for cooking: washed, weighed and portioned and which, thanks to technology capable of tracking each customer’s habits, prepares correct quantities of ingredients to avoid waste. Each preparation is distributed in eco-sustainable kits or in washable and re-usable containers (collected, sterilized and redistributed by the same company). Since its launch at the beginning of 2021, Planeat has so far managed millions of orders, helping to “not waste” over 70 tons of food. The service is currently active in Milan, Pavia and Monza and in the related provinces.
Planeat’s guideline is to create a new value through the maximization of the common good, focusing on the topic of food purchases, creating a service that allows us to improve food waste, dietary balance, food quality, respect for the planet.
Planeat’s offer consists in offering families, singles and companies the possibility of doing food shopping and planning weekly meals by purchasing quality ingredients, fresh and prepared in the exact doses to compose the recipes, therefore without waste and dispersions. Extremely modular and flexible – compared to other competitors that require inelastic and long-lasting subscriptions (with the paradoxical result of risking causing waste rather than reducing it) – the start-up offers users the possibility of composing menus of their choice on the portal, for the desired number of days, for several weeks in a row, or once in a while, then receiving the ingredient kits for making the recipes at your home.
Planeat’s guideline is to create a new value through the maximization of the common good, focusing on the topic of food purchases, creating a service that allows us to improve food waste, dietary balance, food quality, respect for the planet.
Planeat’s offer consists in offering families, singles and companies the possibility of doing food shopping and planning weekly meals by purchasing quality ingredients, fresh and prepared in the exact doses to compose the recipes, therefore without waste and dispersions. Extremely modular and flexible – compared to other competitors that require inelastic and long-lasting subscriptions (with the paradoxical result of risking causing waste rather than reducing it) – the start-up offers users the possibility of composing menus of their choice on the portal, for the desired number of days, for several weeks in a row, or once in a while, then receiving the ingredient kits for making the recipes at your home.
The Holacracy method
«Food production is the human action that is destroying the planet most of all», explains founder Nicola Lamberti, describing how the idea of Planeat was born. «Intensive agricultural and livestock systems contribute to the impoverishment of soil fertility, the increase in desertification and the growing production of greenhouse gases. This is why I believe it is important to act immediately on eating habits. We can’t wait any longer».
Born in 1973, with a degree in physics and two others taken from the Harvard Business School, Nicola Lamberti is the professional who brought the American methodology of Holacracy and a business model with the human and family dynamics of the employee at its center and now feels the urgency of doing something to bring people closer to cooking again. The genuine one which, especially in Italy, has always generated culture.
«I realized – says Lamberti – that lack of time is often the reason that leads people to cook less and less and always the same things. I have four children and I know how complex it can be to put dinner on the table. So, together with the other founders of Planeat we tried to find a way to allow families to optimize not only shopping times but also preparation times, leaving them only the most pleasant and creative part of cooking. It’s a shame that, especially the new generations, forget the Italian culinary tradition, with our service we want to bring people back to the kitchen».
The Machine Learning of Taste
The website offers a calculation of the daily and weekly nutritional balance based on the planned dishes and a system of suggesting dishes based on taste, using machine learning algorithms based on each user’s history. The platform also offers suggestions for alternative dishes which, while maintaining the user’s nutritional balance, have a lower ecological/water impact.
To order, simply enter a delivery location, choose the delivery date and time based on availability, start planning, choosing between portioned kits to cook following the recipes or ready-made dishes. Everything is modular and customizable: you choose the portions and quantities (sparse, normal, abundant). You can add, delete and drag dishes from one day or meal to another. The ingredient kits are received in washable containers, with a label showing the name of the dish, the day it was planned and a QR Code that can be scanned to consult the recipe instructions.
Through the site, users can plan their weekly menu in various ways, choosing from more than 200 traditional Italian recipes and beyond, and receive at home a kit of fresh, washed, weighed and portioned ingredients ready to be cooked in a short time following the attached instructions, or, alternatively, already cooked dishes. You can also buy bread, fruit, vegetables and sweets. Thanks to technology capable of tracking each customer’s habits, Planeat prepares correct quantities of ingredients to avoid waste.
Sustainability
Planeat’s ingredients come from gardens and countryside that work in collaboration with the company and local producers. «We tried to pay great attention to the cost: we want to do something that is compatible with supermarket prices: if it’s something that few people can afford it won’t have an impact. We want to be an alternative but sustainable model to large-scale retail trade”, says Nicola Lamberti.
«Our mission is to create and make accessible to everyone, thanks to competitive prices that respect the production chain (which guarantee a fair distribution of the value generated), a weekly shopping plan through portioned (ready to use) and easily achievable mealkits – adds Lamberti. «We create a democratic spending planning service that gives people time back, allowing them to invest it in something that can increase their psycho-physical well-being, contributing to the more general well-being of the community. With Planeat, the pleasure of cooking remains and, through the collection of recipes, a deep connection with Italian and non-Italian culinary traditions».