Digital carbon labelling partnership aims to cut catering industry emissions over 30% by 2025

06-Sep-2023 - Last updated on 06-Sep-2023 at 15:10 GMT

Image: Getty/10'000 Hours

UK food tech start-up Dynamify has teamed up with Swedish sustainability software specialist Klimato to deliver what it claims is the UK-first digital carbon labelling system enabling the catering industry to dramatically reduce carbon emissions.

Sweden’s Klimato enables food service providers, restaurants, and food producers, such as Sodexo, Hilton, and Violife, to measure, report, and reduce carbon emissions from food.

Founded in 2018, it says its proprietary cloud-based platform has helped more than 3,000 restaurants across the Nordics, the UK, Ireland, Germany, France and the Netherlands, achieve on average a 10.9% reduction in their carbon footprint annually. This is above the official UN recommendation to reduce emissions by 7.6% annually.

UK company Dynamify provides a complete digital ordering platform, white-labelled by contract caterers who deploy the omnichannel technology into their off-the-high-street restaurants, kitchens, and F&B retail offering. By integrating Klimato’s carbon labelling tool, the pair claims that businesses can better manage their Scope 3 emissions, which covers factors such as agricultural production, transportation, cooking, delivery, and waste.

The partnership claims it has already helped catering clients to achieve up to 16% reduction in emissions in just over 12 months.

The carbon labelling service is being rolled out across all ordering channels, aiming to help companies detect carbon hotspots and where changes can be made, removing back-of-house inefficiencies, and taking informed, strategic decisions to move more quickly towards carbon mitigation.

The partners claim that increased visibility will also generate more awareness to customers about their carbon consumption and help the public, in general, bring down their own footprint with educated choices.

Erik Olsen, Head of Growth and UK Country Manager, Klimato, said: “Our rapid success across Sweden and Europe has helped thousands of restaurants achieve an annual carbon reduction level that is well above the official UN recommendation. There is very strong demand from the UK catering industry for these same results as people become increasingly environmentally aware of the impact of the food they consume. The UK’s food industry currently accounts for 35 per cent of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, but we are confident that by this new partnership with Dynamify, we will be able to match the 10.9 % carbon annual footprint reduction that we’ve achieved elsewhere.”

Businesses prompted to accelerate their march towards the UK’s net zero target by 2050

The Dynamify platform was launched in 2015 and serves over 3,000 ‘off-the-street’ restaurants within offices and manufacturing sites, schools and universities, venues and stadia, hospitals, and airport lounges. Dynamify offers a back-office dashboard that collects invaluable data including customer behaviours and segments, which is used to help companies execute targeted marketing campaigns, forecast sales, manage inventory, and reduce food waste.

Dynamify Founder Maxwell Harding said: “In sites that Dynamify and Klimato are already operating within, we’ve seen a 23 per cent reduction in their carbon footprint in just 18 months. Therefore, we’re confident in our 30% carbon reduction forecast having combined the two services, thanks to rolling carbon labelling out to more ordering channels. The ongoing climate emergency, and events such as the record heat, has prompted more businesses to responsibly accelerate their march towards the UK’s net zero target by 2050. By introducing digital carbon labelling, we expect food service providers and retailers to change their product offering as consumer awareness grows and as demand for more sustainable products increases.”