Frequently asked questions about measuring food waste

Waste Warrior Monitor measures food waste with photos. Staff use the app to photograph what comes back after a meal or gets thrown away. For each photo, the AI estimates how many grams it is and which ingredients it contains.

The dashboard shows what that means: how much of your purchased food is thrown away, after which meal, on which ward and which ingredients come back most. So you know where to make changes.

For care organisations that run their own meal service, such as hospitals, nursing homes, mental health and disability care, and for hospitality.

In healthcare you measure per ward and meal moment, with the Milieuthermometer Zorg (the Dutch environmental certification for care organisations) as the benchmark. Restaurants get their own version, with kitchen, fridge and plate waste and a daily weigh-in of the bin. Which version you get depends on the type of location we set up for you.

In healthcare it works like this:

1. After the meal, a staff member starts a measurement in the app and picks the ward, the meal moment, the number of people and the purchases.
2. They photograph every plate, serving dish and pan that still has food on it.
3. For each photo, the AI estimates the grams and the ingredients.
4. The dashboard shows the waste as a percentage of purchases, per meal, per ward and per ingredient.

No. The AI estimates the weight from the photo, which is why the app labels the ingredients as estimated. Staff can adjust every estimate.

You enter drinks and other leftovers yourself, with an estimated weight. Restaurants also weigh the bin once a day, so the photos sit next to the real total. Read more in How reliable is measuring food waste with photos and AI?.

Each method has its own strength:

• Scales and forms: precise, but a lot of paperwork, and you learn little about what was thrown away.
• A camera above the bin: sees what goes into the bin, but usually not which ward or meal it came from.
• A photo per plate, dish or pan: shows what comes back per meal moment, ward and ingredient, without extra equipment. It is an estimate, not a weighing.

A full comparison is in Measuring food waste: scales, bin camera or a photo per plate?.

Insight into where your waste happens, so you can adjust portions, menus or orders in a targeted way. How much you save depends on your situation.

As an indication: across 42 hotels that started measuring and acting on it, kitchen food waste fell by 21 % on average in the first year (Champions 12.3, 2018). That is a sector average, not a Waste Warrior result. A worked example for healthcare is in What does food waste cost a care organisation? A worked example.

Everything that comes back from the ward after a meal: plates, serving dishes and pans with leftovers. The AI estimates those for you.

For each measurement you first pick the ward, the meal moment (breakfast, lunch, dinner or a snack in between) and the number of people. That lets you compare wards and meals later. You manage the wards in the dashboard.

That mostly depends on how many plates come back with leftovers. Empty plates need no photo. For each plate, dish or pan with food on it, you take one photo from directly above.

There is no form and no weighing afterwards: the AI works out the rest. That means measuring fits into clearing up, right at the dish trolley or the serving point.

Usually the person who clears up after the meal: a care worker, a nutrition assistant or someone from the kitchen. Anyone with an account can measure.

The app is built to be quick to use, without long instructions. Whoever manages purchasing, such as the cook or kitchen manager, scans the delivery notes and divides the delivery over the meals.

That is up to you. For a baseline, Milieuplatform Zorgsector (MPZ), the environmental platform for the Dutch care sector, advises measuring for at least two weeks at different points in the process. Ideally, measure every meal on the participating wards during those weeks.

After that you can measure continuously or in set periods. The Milieuthermometer Zorg asks for at least one measurement a year. The more often you measure, the sooner you see whether a change works. See also Food waste baseline measurement: a step-by-step plan for care.

Because then you see the waste as a percentage of what you bought. That is also how the Milieuthermometer Zorg calculates it.

For every measurement you say where the meal came from. You pick a purchase group, scan a delivery note, enter the dishes yourself or choose "I don't know yet". With bulk purchase import (CSV import) you add your purchases in one go, for example from your supplier's export.

You take a photo of the delivery note in the app. The lines are read automatically and you check them.

Then you divide the delivery over purchase groups, for example per meal or per ward. You link those groups to your measurements. If the note can't be read, you enter it by hand.

Then choose "I don't know yet". You can carry on measuring straight away, and the app calculates with a default of 500 grams per person.

That is less precise. The dashboard therefore shows how many measurements used the default. So you know how solid the percentage is, and where you can still add the real purchases.

Yes, you can photograph anything that gets thrown away. Soup in a bowl counts as a serving dish and soup in a pan as a pan; the AI estimates both.

For drinks and anything that isn't a plate, dish or pan, such as what is left after a meeting or what has to go from the fridge, you choose "Drink" or "Other" and enter the estimated weight yourself. It simply counts towards the total.

Yes. Whoever supplies the meals, the staff member who clears up photographs what comes back from the ward.

You link purchases through the caterer's delivery notes or deliveries, or you enter the dishes yourself. If the caterer's staff help out, you can give them access to the app as well.

It is an estimate, not a weighing, and we don't attach an accuracy percentage to it. The AI compares what it sees with fixed reference sizes and, when the purchases are known, with the portions of that meal.

Built-in checks flag unlikely results, and staff can adjust every estimate. For steering, the trend matters most: the same method, week after week. Read more in How reliable is measuring food waste with photos and AI?.

The AI recognises the leftovers in the photo and estimates the weight and food group of each ingredient. It uses familiar sizes as a reference, such as a plate, a serving spoon or a potato, and takes height and volume into account.

When purchases are linked, the AI knows what a normal portion of that dish is and estimates what share of it is left.

Yes. Tap an ingredient and change its name, food group or amount, or delete it. The photo's total is then recalculated.

The original estimate is kept next to your correction. That way the numbers match what was really thrown away, and you can always see what was changed.

Sometimes a photo is too dark or the AI finds no food. That photo is then not counted, and you will see it under "What's missing" on the dashboard. You can retry the analysis in the app.

To take a good photo: hold the phone directly above the plate, make sure there is enough light and get the whole plate in the frame.

For most decisions, yes. You want to know which meal, ward and ingredient is the biggest item, and whether a change helps. You read that from the proportions and the trend, which stay useful as long as you measure the same way each time.

Assessing plate waste from photos is also an established method in hospital research. In an Australian study, assessment by people came close to weighing (Nutrition Society of Australia, 2025).

For healthcare you see:

• how much of your purchases was thrown away, with the Milieuthermometer levels next to it
• the waste per meal moment and what comes back most after each meal
• what was not eaten and what was never served
• each ward, compared with the previous period
• the weekly trend over the last 26 weeks
• which ingredients come back, and after which meal
• a photo gallery you can search by ingredient

You pick a period, from the last 7 days to this year, and filter by ward.

What came back, divided by what was purchased for those meals.

An example: after lunch 9 kilos come back, and 50 kilos were purchased for that lunch. The waste is then 18 %. If no purchases are linked, the app uses a default of 500 grams per person. The dashboard shows how many measurements that applies to.

Not eaten is what comes back on the plates. That says something about taste, portion size or appetite. Not served is what is left in serving dishes and pans: more was cooked or put out than needed.

The two call for different approaches, which is why the dashboard shows them separately. How to act on them is in Reducing food waste in care: what do you do with the figures?.

Yes. For each ward you see the percentage in the selected period and the period before, and by how many percentage points it went down or up. With the ward filter you see the whole dashboard for one ward.

Check "What's missing" as well. A ward that measured fewer meals is harder to compare.

The dashboard has a "What's missing" overview. It shows which meals were not measured on which wards, which measurements used the default purchases, which measurements are unfinished and which photos failed.

So before a meeting or an audit, you know whether your numbers are complete.

Yes. With automatic report generation (PDF report), Waste Warrior turns your measurements into a report you can share with the board, your team or an auditor.

Colleagues who want to follow along can also get access to the dashboard, with a role that matches what they are allowed to see.

No. Waste Warrior Monitor measures grams, kilos and percentages.

What that means in euros and CO₂, you can work out with the calculator on our homepage. It assumes € 8 per kilo, our own cautious assumption, and about 3 kg CO₂-equivalent per kilo of wasted food (WRAP). It remains a worked example with your own numbers. See also What does food waste cost a care organisation? A worked example.

Yes. An organisation can have several locations, each with its own wards, staff and dashboard.

On the web you switch between locations, and in the app you choose "Change location". Staff only see the locations they are a member of.

Requirement 7.3 asks you to measure and record waste from kitchen waste, plate waste and banqueting at least once a year. Within two years of certification, waste is at most 20 % of the purchased weight. Based on the results you draw up an action plan.

For gold there is an extra rule: at most 15 % for prepared meals (Milieuplatform Zorgsector (MPZ)). Everything about this requirement is in Milieuthermometer Zorg: how to measure food waste for requirement 7.3.

No. Requirement 7.3 is mandatory for silver and gold, and an optional extra for bronze. It applies to central catering: a central kitchen cooking for more than 30 clients, or centrally purchased convenience meals.

Locations where cooking is decentralised, for example in small-scale living, fall outside it (Milieuplatform Zorgsector (MPZ)).

Divide the weight of what you throw away by the weight of what you purchased, and multiply by 100.

An example: in two weeks you buy 1,000 kilos of food and throw away 180 kilos. Your waste is then 18 %, below the 20 % limit. Waste Warrior Monitor calculates the same way: what came back, divided by the purchases for those meals.

They show where you stand against the Milieuthermometer Zorg. Up to and including 15 %, the app shows Gold; up to and including 20 %, Silver; above that, Bronze.

It is an indicator, not an official assessment. In the Milieuthermometer, requirement 7.3 is not mandatory for bronze, and for gold a second limit comes on top of the 20 % of purchases: at most 15 % for prepared meals, relative to their weight. The app only calculates against purchases.

No. Certification is done by an independent certification body. The check for this requirement is administrative: the auditor looks at the goals in your sustainable food and catering plan.

Waste Warrior Monitor helps you collect the evidence: waste as a percentage of purchases, per ward and meal moment, with a PDF report from automatic report generation and an overview of what is still missing. Use real purchase data wherever you can; it makes your percentage stronger.

A baseline measurement (nulmeting) is your first measurement: how much do you throw away now, and where. Requirement 7.1 of the Milieuthermometer Zorg asks for a sustainable food plan with a baseline and measurable goals, including for food waste.

Measure for at least two weeks. Then set goals, put measures in place and measure again. How to go about it is in Food waste baseline measurement: a step-by-step plan for care.

Care providers agree to map their food waste and make every effort to reduce it as much as possible. Where clients cook for themselves, the focus is on information and awareness. That is in the Green Deal Duurzame Zorg 3.0, the Dutch care sector's sustainability agreement, and word for word in its successor, the 2027-2030 deal "Samen verder", which starts on 1 November 2026.

The Green Deal sets no percentage. The 20 % and 15 % limits are in the Milieuthermometer Zorg. Read more in Green Deal Duurzame Zorg: what it asks about food waste.

No, not for a care organisation or a restaurant. The Milieuthermometer Zorg is a voluntary certificate, and the Green Deal is an agreement, not a law.

The EU targets for 2030, such as 30 % less waste per person, jointly across retail, restaurants, food services and households, apply to member states, not to individual kitchens (European Commission). The Netherlands aims to halve food waste by 2030 compared with 2015 (letter to parliament, 2025).

For most care organisations, no. Since the 2026 Omnibus amendment, the CSRD only applies to companies with more than 1,000 employees and more than € 450 million in turnover (Tanso).

If your organisation is in scope, food waste falls under resource use and circular economy (ESRS E5). For most care organisations, the Milieuthermometer and the Green Deal are the main reasons to measure.

In the EU. The database and the photos are stored in Microsoft's Azure West Europe region. The image recognition that analyses the photos also runs on servers in the EU.

Staff only see the data of the locations they are a member of.

No. A measurement is about a meal as a whole: the ward, the meal moment and the number of people. Nothing records who ate what.

From staff we only process what is needed to log in and work together, such as their e-mail address and name. Waste Warrior measures waste per meal or group, not the intake of an individual client.

Roles decide that. An organisation admin manages the organisation's locations. A location admin manages the staff and settings of one location. Members do the day-to-day work, such as measuring.

Staff only see the locations they are a member of.

You log in with your e-mail address and a one-time six-digit code. So there are no passwords that can leak.

On the web you can see your active sessions and log out everywhere at once. In the app, the login key is kept in the phone's secure storage and wiped when you log out. What someone can see and do depends on their role and the locations they belong to.

The app asks you to photograph from directly above the plate, with only the plate in the frame. That way little else ends up in the picture.

If you notice something in a photo that shouldn't be there, delete the photo before you finish the measurement. If you delete a whole measurement, all of its photos are deleted too.

Yes, for as long as your contract with us runs. That way you can look at photos again in the gallery and check your figures. If you delete a measurement yourself, its photos and data go with it straight away.

When the contract ends, we anonymise the data. After that we keep it only for internal data analysis. In everything we do with your data, we strictly follow the GDPR (in Dutch, the AVG).

Staff members can delete their own account, in the app or on the web. Their personal data, such as e-mail address and name, is then deleted straight away.

Measurements, photos and purchases stay with the organisation, but are no longer linked to that person. So your numbers stay complete.

Not to train other companies' AI models. Your photos are used to estimate the waste in your measurements, on servers in the EU.

What we do keep are the corrections your staff make to an estimate. We use those internally to improve our own checks on the estimates. They also make sure your figures match what was really thrown away.

That depends on what you want to measure and at how many locations. We put together a solution that fits your organisation, combining different parts, so there is no single fixed price.

The larger the rollout, the more favourable the terms. In a demo we look together at what suits you, and afterwards you get a proposal tailored to you.

Yes. We start with a pilot at one location and only expand after a joint evaluation.

During the pilot we tune the way of working to your organisation. That way you first see what measuring delivers, before you go further.

Usually you are live within about two weeks. There is no equipment to install.

We set up your location, with its wards and users. Your staff then install the app on their phones, and we show them how it works. After that you can measure your first meal.

A smartphone with internet access, either an iPhone or an Android phone, and the Waste Warrior app from the App Store or Google Play. Everyone logs in with their own account.

In healthcare you need no scale, camera or other device. Restaurants also use an ordinary scale for the daily weigh-in of the bin. You open the dashboard in your browser.

iPhones and Android phones. You download the app from the App Store or Google Play and log in with your own e-mail address.

The app is made for the phone: you hold it directly above the plate. You open the dashboard in the browser on your computer.

No. Analysing the photos needs an internet connection, over wifi or mobile data.

If the connection drops for a moment, the app keeps the photos that haven't been sent yet. As soon as there is a connection again, they are sent.

Very little, and you are not on your own. When you start, we train your team, on site or online.

The first time, the app explains in a few screens how to take a good photo. The app is in Dutch; the dashboard is in Dutch and English.

Purchases come in by scanning a delivery note, entering dishes yourself or through bulk purchase import (CSV import), for example with your supplier's export. That needs no technical integration.

If you would like a direct link with another system, raise it in a demo.

There is no fixed term set in advance. We start with a pilot. Afterwards we evaluate it together and agree on how widely you continue and for how long.

Questions about terms already? E-mail info@waste-warrior.com.

WUR research in Dutch hospitals found that about 40 % (by weight) of the patient meals studied was thrown away, mostly from the hot meal (WUR, 2016). There are no more recent national figures.

Hospitals with a more modern concept, where patients order later and have more choice, wasted nearly half as much (NOS, 2017). More in Food waste in hospitals: what works in practice.

No, there are no current national figures. In 2023 the Dutch minister confirmed there are no figures on food waste in care homes (parliamentary questions, 2023).

So if you want to know where you stand, you need to measure yourself. Start with a baseline measurement on a few wards. Read more in Food waste in nursing homes: why elderly care is different.

• Kitchen waste arises before serving: trimmings, food prepared in excess and what is left in pans.
• Plate waste is what comes back on the plates.
• Banqueting is food and drink at events and meetings.

The Milieuthermometer Zorg asks you to measure all three. In Waste Warrior Monitor, photos of plates and serving dishes count as plate waste, and photos of pans as kitchen waste.

That depends on the number of meals and on what comes back. According to NOS, reporting on WUR research in 2017, a hospital could save € 50,000 to € 150,000 a year (NOS, 2017).

An example: 300 meals a day, 150 grams thrown away per meal and € 8 per kilo (our own cautious assumption) comes to over € 131,000 a year. Work it out for your own kitchen on the homepage or read the worked example.

What stays on the plate is also nutrition a resident or patient doesn't get. In 2024, 16.2 % of residents in Dutch nursing homes had (a risk of) malnutrition (Goërtz et al., 2026).

So plate waste is also a care signal. If you see which dishes and ingredients come back, you can match what you serve to what people actually eat. Read more in Plate waste is a care signal: food waste and malnutrition.

No, and that should never be the goal. It is about the right amount and the right dish. More choice, easier ordering and help at mealtimes reduce waste and can actually improve intake. Smaller portions with the option of a second helping reduce waste too, as long as they deliver enough energy and protein (RIVM, 2025).

Waste Warrior measures what comes back per meal or group, not what an individual client eats.

According to RIVM, the Dutch public health institute, these work:

• more choice in what and when people eat
• ordering close to mealtime, for example at the bedside
• several smaller portions
• extra help from nutrition assistants

Radboudumc combines small dishes and nutrition assistants with ward kitchens stocked by bed occupancy, and went from 35 % to 11 % waste (RIVM). More ideas in Reducing food waste in care: what do you do with the figures?.

Yes, wherever cooking is central or meals are purchased centrally. There you measure the same way, per ward or living group.

Where clients cook for themselves, waste falls outside requirement 7.3 of the Milieuthermometer Zorg. There, the Green Deal mainly asks for information and awareness. An overview per sector is in Food waste in healthcare: what it costs and how to measure it.

During the day your team photographs what gets thrown away and picks the type of waste:

• kitchen waste: peelings and trimmings
• fridge waste: past its date or spoiled
• plate waste: leftovers back from the table

You can link a plate photo to a dish. At the end of the day you weigh the bin and enter the daily total. The dashboard puts the photos next to the weigh-in.

Because the weigh-in gives the real total. The photos show what the waste consists of, the scale shows how much there is.

The overview shows what share of the daily total the photos explain. The dashboard also shows on which days nothing has been weighed yet.

Yes, in the restaurant version you can switch on reminders: at 12:00 for fridge waste, 14:00 for kitchen waste, 18:00 for plate waste and 21:00 for the daily total. You switch each reminder on or off separately.

Forgot to measure, or does the kitchen run past midnight? You can also log photos and weigh-ins for another day.

Link plate photos to dishes. The dashboard plots each dish by how often it came back and how much was left on the plate on average.

A dish that is popular and leaves a lot behind is a candidate for a smaller portion. For each dish you can also see which ingredient comes back most, and on which day.

No. The Milieuthermometer Zorg is a standard for healthcare. In a restaurant you see the kilos per type of waste, per day and per dish.

You also see where an ingredient is lost: in the fridge, in the kitchen or on the plate. So you know whether to adjust purchasing, preparation or portion size.

About 55 million kilos a year, worth € 647 million (Rabobank, 2023).

Almost a hundred hospitality businesses that took part in the six-week Food Waste Challenge in 2019 ended up with 21 % less waste, against a target of 12.5 % (Rabobank via banken.nl, 2020). Where to start is in Measuring food waste in restaurants: what it costs and where to start.