Optimise the unseen

The first AI-driven platform empowering food & drink manufacturers to take action against food waste.

See how it works

Working with leading UK food and drink manufacturers.

In partnership with

The Problem

Up to 10%
added onto food manufacturers' cost of goods by food waste
7x
more is lost in manufacturing compared to retail
70%
of the waste at manufacturing stage is edible

You can't optimise what you can't see

What manufacturers see:

Volume of waste leaving each site
Revenue from animal feed and anaerobic digestion

An iceberg: a small visible tip above the water and a far larger mass hidden below

What manufacturers don't see:

Key drivers of waste
Total economic cost of waste
Edible food going to waste
Full social and environmental impact

You can't optimise what you can't see

What manufacturers see:

Volume of waste leaving each site
Revenue from animal feed and anaerobic digestion

What manufacturers don't see:

Key drivers of waste
Total economic cost of waste
Edible food going to waste
Full social and environmental impact

How it works

Act on data you already have

The data to cut waste is already in your production records. It just sits silent. Zest's machine-learning engine turns it into insight you can act on, so you finally optimise what you could never see.

Connect your existing data

Zest reads the production, run and waste records you already keep, from your ERP, MES and existing reports, in whatever form they are in. Our team handles the mapping with you.

Reads from your MES and variance reporting
Your data stays yours, under a UK GDPR data processing agreement

Connect your existing data, Zest platform

See what waste really costs

Zest Detect turns your silent data into a clear view of where waste is happening and what it is costing you, by product, line, stage and even shifts, so you can see and investigate in detail what's happening.

The financial cost of every loss, not just the tonnage
Where waste is happening, by line, stage, area and shift
Trends by shift, day or week, and which ones lose the most

See what waste really costs, Zest platform

Act before it becomes waste

Zest Correct goes further, with predictive analytics and an intervention engine that flags when a line drifts from its norm, so your production and operations teams can act on a deviation before it turns into waste, and find efficiencies they could never see before.

Predictive analytics that learns what normal looks like on each line
Alerts the moment a run starts to deviate from the norm
Ranked, costed interventions your line managers can act on
AI-powered simulations based on your operational levers

Act before it becomes waste, Zest platform

Eradicate waste, for good

Over time, Zest builds the picture that lets you eradicate waste from the process, not just report it. Trace every loss back to the order and batch it came from, and route what is genuinely unavoidable to its best use.

Trace every loss back to the order and batch it came from
Route unavoidable surplus to its best use, with our redistribution partners
Keep improving your waste baseline, run after run

Eradicate waste, for good, Zest platform

Our results

What Zest has achieved so far

10-30% less total waste

A synchronisation gap between the oven and packing lines was overusing up to 388 kg of ingredient per batch. Zest modelled a line-balancing change projected to cut total waste by 10 to 30%.

UK cereal manufacturer

62 kg of high-value waste a day

Fixed machine settings running against variable line speeds were creating around 62 kg of high-value waste a day. Zest projected a seven-figure annual saving from optimising flavour application.

Snacks manufacturer, multi-site

Rework turned into revenue

With no view of material flow from one line to the next, this waste stayed hidden. Zest's risk mapping surfaced excess rework the team could sell instead of discarding.

International confectionery manufacturer

Why Zest

Built to solve real problems at food manufacturing factories.

Purpose-built, not adapted

Designed hand in hand with manufacturers and shaped around the messy, real-world data a food or drink site actually produces, not a general-purpose analytics tool with a food label added.

Mapped to your process and your priorities

We map your production process with you and start from the losses that matter most on your site, so what Zest surfaces reflects your lines, your runs, and the decisions your team has to make.

Bespoke AI, aimed at what you can change

Bespoke models built for food and drink manufacturing surface the controllable factors behind waste and inefficiency, the settings and choices you can act on, not another static report.

Fits your stack, not another system

Zest reads from the data sources you already keep and feeds its findings into the tools your team already works in, so a finding becomes an action someone takes, not just a report that gets filed.

The People