A Man On The Mission To Reduce Food Waste
June 21, 2017 By: Amruta Kshemkalyani

Since I first met Marc Zornes early this year, this man on the mission to reduce food waste and his company Winnow Solutions has come a long way! Recently they won ‘Financial Times Transformational Business Awards 2017’ in London for helping to achieve the UN’s sustainable development goals through technology.

In our, first meeting, we had so much to talk about thanks to our common interest, US Green Building Council. The best thing I noticed about Marc is that he is not like any other businessman, he is passionate about the cause and wants to raise awareness about food waste.

First meeting with Marc Zornes

Interestingly Marc has always been a person with a sense of responsibility towards society. After graduating from Washington University in St. Luis, he volunteered for 7 months in Peru to help to install clean water systems. Later he completed his MBA in International Business from INSEAD. After working with U. S. Green Building Council on LEED for retail and then for a large food wholesaler, he joined McKinsey & Company where he co-led McKinsey’s report on resource management: Resource Revolution. In this report, he worked on resource use and cost of resources waste across all resources. This was a point in his life when he started thinking about food waste. Especially knowing the fact, we have worldwide food waste worth 1 trillion $. As he saw a huge opportunity in solving the problem of food waste; he decided to tackle the issue of food waste by cofounding Winnow Solutions. He’s a strong believer that technology can help us change the way we make food.

Watch here, Marc Zornes TEDx Talk

In his words, ‘Reducing food waste comes with enormous savings potential for the industry. But, It’s relevant to note that raising awareness of food waste is not only about hospitality industries. All those engaged in the food sector has a role to play as food waste occurs throughout the supply chain and takes different forms’.

Before meeting Marc, I hardly knew the details of food waste. He pointed out how in the large restaurant kitchen a lot of food is not just wasted after serving but even before cooking, in storage. Winnow smart meters help chefs measure and manage food waste.

Read here how Pullman Dubai Creek reduced food waste after installing Winnow’s smart meters and how these smart meters work.

You will hear this from Marc all the time, ‘What gets measured gets managed’ but good domain knowledge and experience are the things behind it. Winnow is successfully reducing food waste across many countries by installing their smart meters and working with huge hospitality groups like Accor Hotels, Compass Group, Intercontinental Hotels Group to name a few along with some schools. No wonder why Winnow was the winner of 2016, Guardian Sustainable Business Startup of the Year Award.

Recently at the start of the Holy month of Ramadan, Winnow Solutions along with UAE Ministry of Climate Change organized a food waste awareness event. Food waste costs Dubai the equivalent of $4 billion every year and the issue increases even more during Ramadan.

Marc Zornes is a great example of a sustainable entrepreneur, who builds a business on required climate action to find a viable solution to existing sustainability issue! Hope after reading his amazing journey some of our readers will be inspired to be an Eco-Entrepreneur like him.

I was so inspired by Marc’s work and mission that I started a little family tradition of Empty Fridge Day to reduce food waste at home.

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