UK agency Innovate UK has awarded a grant of £43,600 to the York-based technology firm BakePlan Software to develop a new artificial intelligence (AI) system that could help retailers control food waste.

seleced as part of Innovate UK’s Emerging and Enabling Technologies programme, the company’s solution will be designed to examine food products, count them and record data about them autonomously.

According to BakePlan, this technology not only improves product availability, freshness and sales, but also helps in reducing food waste.

BakePlan Software’s project aims to eliminate the manual data inputting needed by food retail staff to control waste.

BakePlan Software managing director Jane Tyler said: “This award from Innovate UK will enable us to take our concept from the drawing board to reality.

“We will do this by mixing machine learning, autonomous imaging, speech recognition and mobile/cloud internet data delivery.

“BakePlan’s goal is to gain market penetration across the supermarket, food-to-go and convenience store sectors in the UK and to export to European and global markets.

“Grocery retailers across Britain have pledged to cut their food waste by 20% by 2025.”

“As well as boosting our export opportunities, Innovate UK’s grant will help us to grow our company and our skill set.”

Grocery retailers across Britain have pledged to cut their food waste by 20% by 2025 by signing an agreement known as the Courtauld Commitment.

M&S has already implemented BakePlan’s forecasting application throughout its UK and Eire stores and wants to cut its food waste by 50% by 2025 as part of its Plan A 2025 sustainability programme.

BakePlan Software designs and develops demand-forecasting software, which advises supermarket bakers and other in-store food production staff on the right products.