Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Buying 120% of the food needed to serve 100% of customers is not a waste problem.
It is a procurement, forecasting and margin problem.
My guest is Olaf van der Veen, co-founder of Orbisk, working with hotels, restaurants, cruise ships and institutional kitchens to measure where food disappears inside day-to-day operations. What looks like plate waste is often created much earlier through overproduction, overstocking, purchasing decisions and weak operating procedures.
That matters because food-service operators are dealing with tight margins, higher input costs, labour pressure and increasing reporting demands at the same time. Olaf cites 15–20% food waste as an industry average and frames the consequence starkly: buying 120% of the food required to serve 100% of guests means the excess becomes bottom-line loss. The sustainability case matters, but the operating economics arrive first.
A few things changed my thinking. Around 70% of the waste Olaf observed in his original restaurant study never reached a plate; it was lost upstream through overproduction, overstocking and process failures. One hotel removed a chef by switching to buffet service, only to discover the extra food waste was expensive enough to pay for two and a half chefs. And on forecasting, the strongest result was not AI replacing human judgement: the machine forecast and chef forecast were similar individually, while combining both produced better results than either alone.
This is for supply chain, procurement, hospitality operations and sustainability leaders responsible for demand planning, inventory, margin and operational performance.
If you’re dealing with excess inventory or forecast error in perishable supply chains, I’d like to hear where the biggest losses actually show up.
Resilient Supply Chain: resilientsupplychainpodcast.com
Subscribe for practical conversations on supply chain resilience, operations, technology and sustainability.
Follow the podcast so you don’t miss future episodes.
CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS: See below.
00:00 The Hidden 70% Waste
00:32 Show Intro and Guest Setup
02:17 Why Orbisk Exists
04:19 From Kitchen Habits to Systems
09:28 Who Owns Waste and Why It Persists
10:58 Practical Fixes Kitchens Can Try
12:56 Tracking Waste With AI and IoT
18:29 Scaling Impact and Proving ROI
30:35 Future Forecasting and Wrap Up
Buying 120% of the food needed to serve 100% of customers is not a waste problem.
It is a procurement, forecasting and margin problem.
My guest is Olaf van der Veen, co-founder of Orbisk, working with hotels, restaurants, cruise ships and institutional kitchens to measure where food disappears inside day-to-day operations. What looks like plate waste is often created much earlier through overproduction, overstocking, purchasing decisions and weak operating procedures.
That matters because food-service operators are dealing with tight margins, higher input costs, labour pressure and increasing reporting demands at the same time. Olaf cites 15–20% food waste as an industry average and frames the consequence starkly: buying 120% of the food required to serve 100% of guests means the excess becomes bottom-line loss. The sustainability case matters, but the operating economics arrive first.
A few things changed my thinking. Around 70% of the waste Olaf observed in his original restaurant study never reached a plate; it was lost upstream through overproduction, overstocking and process failures. One hotel removed a chef by switching to buffet service, only to discover the extra food waste was expensive enough to pay for two and a half chefs. And on forecasting, the strongest result was not AI replacing human judgement: the machine forecast and chef forecast were similar individually, while combining both produced better results than either alone.
This is for supply chain, procurement, hospitality operations and sustainability leaders responsible for demand planning, inventory, margin and operational performance.
If you’re dealing with excess inventory or forecast error in perishable supply chains, I’d like to hear where the biggest losses actually show up.
Resilient Supply Chain: resilientsupplychainpodcast.com
Subscribe for practical conversations on supply chain resilience, operations, technology and sustainability.
Follow the podcast so you don’t miss future episodes.
CHAPTERS / TIMESTAMPS: See below.
00:00 The Hidden 70% Waste
00:32 Show Intro and Guest Setup
02:17 Why Orbisk Exists
04:19 From Kitchen Habits to Systems
09:28 Who Owns Waste and Why It Persists
10:58 Practical Fixes Kitchens Can Try
12:56 Tracking Waste With AI and IoT
18:29 Scaling Impact and Proving ROI
30:35 Future Forecasting and Wrap Up
