Winnow
AI food waste tracking and forecasting that cuts food costs 2–8% in commercial kitchens.
By Winnow Solutions Ltd · HQ London, England · 4.2/5 Value-Position score (estimate)
Positioning guardrails
Best for
- Multi-site hotels, resorts and cruise fleets that need consistent food-cost control across many kitchens and outlets.
- Contract caterers and university dining teams that must evidence waste reductions for ESG, CSRD or net-zero reporting.
- Executive chefs and F&B directors who want automatic waste capture with no logging step for kitchen staff.
- Kitchens with sizeable annual food spend where a 2–8% purchasing saving funds the system several times over.
Ideal size: 2–200 kitchens people · Multi-site hospitality or catering group with ESG reporting duties
Not for
- Single-site operators with very low food spend that cannot justify a per-site subscription.
- Kitchens unwilling to change production and service routines; coaching only pays back if teams act on the data.
- Buyers who want published, self-serve list pricing rather than a quoted per-site plan.
Value metrics scorecard
Time-to-Value
2–4 weeks
~14 days to first production value
Total Cost of Ownership
On request
One-time configuration fee per system plus an ongoing per-site subscription; no public price list.
Implementation Friction
2/5
Engineering + admin effort required
Value-Position score
out of 5 · model estimate
Full cost breakdown
Mandatory implementation fee
None
Seat tiers
Priced per site, not per user; tablet-only Track and hardware-free Foresight suit smaller kitchens.
Add-on costs
- One-time configuration fee per system, covering setup, team training and initial support.
- Vision hardware (camera plus connected scale); Track needs only a tablet and Foresight needs no hardware.
Company & support
Who is behind Winnow, and how your team gets help once it is live.
Company
- Founded
- 2013 · 13 yrs in business
- Headquarters
- London, England
How you get support
- PhoneNot listed
- EmailNot listed
- Live chatNot listed
- Support portal / ticketsNot listed
- Community forumNot listed
- Help centre / docsNot listed
- Dedicated account managerAll plans
- In person / on-siteNot listed
- Hours
- Not recorded
- Response time
- Not stated
Every Winnow user gets a named customer success manager plus expert kitchen coaching, and onboarding includes team training and initial support.
“Not listed” means the vendor’s public pages don’t mention that channel, not that it is unavailable. Ask about it during evaluation.
Market position
Where Winnow sits against its closest alternatives. Pick any two of cost, speed, friction and buyer score, and up to 9 companies to compare.
Quadrant view
Typical annual cost × Time-to-value
The lines cross at the median of the solutions shown, so about half sit on each side of each line.
Companies on the chart 6 / 10
- Winnow
- MarketMan
- ChefTec
- Nory
- Craftable
- Planergy
Add or change companies
Up to 10 companies including Winnow. Listed closest first.
Stack fit signal
Compatibility with standard B2B ecosystems.
No supported MCP path today, so it cannot be driven from an AI client.
AI & MCP readiness
What Winnow ships in AI, and what it asks of your ecosystem.
AI features shipped
VisionAI with Throw & Go records each disposal automatically, identifying items from a library of 1,000+ foods, and Winnow Foresight, developed with Hilton chefs, uses AI to forecast demand and production service by service.
Your data & models
- Trains on your data
- Not recorded — ask the vendor
- Runs on
- Not recorded
- AI pricing
- Not recorded
In your ecosystem
- AI connection
- Not supported
- Model key
- Not recorded
- AI usage audit
- Not recorded
Compliance attestations
* IAPP AIGP certifies individuals, not products. It means named staff hold the credential — not that the platform does.
Bottom line
Winnow is an AI food waste system for commercial kitchens. Throw & Go captures each disposal automatically — weighed, photographed and timestamped — and Foresight forecasts how much to produce per service. Deployed in 3,500+ sites across 90+ countries, mainly hotels, resorts, cruise and university catering, clients cut waste by about half and food costs by 2–8%, with payback typically inside 6–12 months. Pricing is a one-time configuration fee per system plus a per-site subscription, quoted privately rather than published.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Winnow cost?
Winnow pricing has two parts: a one-time configuration fee per system that covers setup, team training and initial support, and an ongoing subscription quoted per site. There is no public price list because a small hotel and a large all-inclusive resort have different problems. Winnow states that fees are typically covered 2 to 10 times over by food cost savings.
What return should we expect, and how fast?
Sites typically cut food purchasing costs by 2 to 8%, which returns 2 to 10 times what Winnow costs, with payback usually inside 6 to 12 months. Annual savings run from $5,000 to more than $50,000 per site depending on kitchen size and volume. Across all customers, Winnow users save more than $100m a year.
How long does installation take?
Winnow says units are built to go live without a technician and without IT involvement. They can be pole mounted, wall mounted or free standing, and assembly takes about 15 minutes; a technician is provided if you need a wall-mounted unit. The one-time configuration fee covers setup, team training and initial support.
Do staff have to log or scan anything?
No. With Throw & Go, kitchen staff bin food exactly as they normally would, with nothing to scan and nothing to select, and the AI records the item and its weight in under a second. Winnow argues that systems relying on staff to remember a log can miss more than 30% of total waste.
Is there a cheaper option for smaller kitchens?
Yes. Winnow Track is a tablet-only solution with no camera or scale, built for smaller kitchens and grab-and-go operations. Winnow Foresight standalone needs no hardware at all and is low cost to adopt. Both are designed for sites that cannot justify a full Vision system.
Can Winnow data support CSRD reporting?
Winnow says yes: it delivers auditable, CSRD-ready data because every disposal into the measured bin is weighed, timestamped and photographed. That maps to ESRS E5-5, which requires waste quantities in tonnes plus a statement of whether figures come from direct measurement or estimation. Groups report at consolidated level, with Winnow supplying the measured site-level evidence.