Recently, a lot of restaurants, catering companies and catering industry associations in Guangdong have responded to the call of President Xi Jinping to stop food waste, setting off a trend to effectively cultivate people's thrifty habits. Some Guangdong restaurants have been using internet technology and intelligent system to match their customers' food consumption data with the food production and processing chain, so as to reduce the phenomenon of food waste.

Wang Tianbin, the operator of the canteen of Guangdong Ocean University, said the university has introduced a "smart canteen" system from last September to effectively provide data reference for operators and enrich the supply capacity for group meals. The smart canteen system not only saves students' time in queuing and taking meals, but also adds variety to their daily diet.

"In the smart canteen, students can start choosing meals after scanning a QR code or scanning their faces to check the identity,"said Wang. "There are many electronic scales in front of the self-service area. Students can place two or three small dishes on the electronic scale one by one, wait for the food price to display on the scale automatically, and then pay through face payment or mobile payment. The whole food taking process will not exceed 10 minutes."

"This intelligent system can reduce leftovers in the canteen by 90%." Wang added.

Bu Pinghua, general manager of Guangzhou Three Meals a Day Food Co., Ltd. Said the company will make thousands of meals for the elderly in the community every day, all of which are produced according to the orders booked the previous day.

"We usually receive orders for the next day's meal on the internet up to 4 p.m., and then our factory will prepare materials and ingredients according to the order quantity," Bu said. "For example, tomorrow we need to produce 1,000 meals for a certain community. Enter the order quantity and other special requirements into our EPI system, the computer will immediately show how many kilograms of rice, fruit, vegetables, and meat will be needed. Then the warehouse will use the data to prepare materials and send them to automatic production lines for further cooking."

In addition, some restaurants such as Taier Pickled Cabbage Fish have begun to provide "half bowl" service and put posters in their shops to promote this new service.

The poster of Taier Pickled Cabbage Fish's half bowl service. [Photo/Taier Pickled Cabbage Fish]

Author| Ariel

Editor| Steven, Jerry