Using Artificial Intelligence to Combat Food Waste with Somdip Dey

Welcome to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. I'm your host Chris Spear. On the show. I have conversations with culinary entrepreneurs, and people in the food and beverage industry who took a different route. They're caterers, research chefs, personal chefs, cookbook authors, food truckers, farmers, cottage bakers and all sorts of culinary renegades. I myself fall into the personal chef category as I started my own personal chef business perfect little bites 11 years ago. And while I started working in kitchens in the early 90s, I've literally never worked in a restaurant. This week, I have Somdip Dey. He's an embedded artificial intelligence scientist and engineer turned entrepreneur, fighting a war against food waste. He's the CEO of Nosh technologies, which provides mobile solutions to optimize consumers food consumption and reduce food waste in our household. He's also a TEDx speaker. On the show, we talk about food waste and some of the technologies helping to combat it. summed up his parents were in a horrible car accident, and he was sending them all his money to help with their medical bills. With no money left to buy groceries, he had to resort to dumpster diving to survive. This was the seed that started his crusade. You don't need to be a scientist to follow along here. Some depth does get a little bit nerdy, but he breaks it down so it's easy to understand. So will AI take over and kill us all like in the Terminator? Probably not. But it's also helped him create some unique art like the photo of him I'm using to promote this episode. And he's also begun creating music aided by AI. And thank you to this week's sponsor Savory Jobs. Did you know restaurants turn over employees four times faster than most businesses? What if somebody created an affordable and effective hiring solution for the restaurant industry? What if there were a job site that only focused on people looking for food service jobs? What if that site only cost $50 a year to advertise for every job your restaurant needed? Forget the big corporate sites like Indeed and Monster. Our sponsor Savory Jobs has a jo site exclusively fo restaurants. The best part i savory jobs only charges $50 fo an entire year. And you can pos all the jobs you want. And fo our loyal listeners use the cod Savory10 and get 10% off. So go to savoryjobs.com and dis over the job site shakin up the industry. And remember t use the code savory10 for 10 off. And now on with the show. Thanks so much and have a great week. Hey, Somdip Welcome to the show. Thanks so much for coming on.

Hey, Chris, thank you so much for having me on your podcast.

I'm glad we could catch up again. You and I met on clubhouse a couple months ago. We were just talking off off mic that we were kind of early adopters on the platform. And I really liked getting to know people. Well back in the early days. And you know, early days was like three months ago, but it seems forever ago in clubhouse days. Exactly. The clubhouse platform has like grown so quickly in so less time.

So it does feel like almost couple of years that we haven't talked. But I'm so glad that I met you on the platform.

Yeah, I love your story and I can't wait to share it with people. So a little bit bit of background, you're an embedded artificial intelligence scientist, is that right?

Yes, that is correct. That is actually my real profession. I became an entrepreneur by, I would say, not having a choice.

Yet walk. So what does that even mean? I very basic science knowledge for so. So for people who don't really know, I mean, working with artificial intelligence I've got but kind of what what do you do.

So, when you build artificial intelligence or machine learning model, usually these models are very computationally resource utilized. So what happens, if you want to train and run these model, you need powerful computers, at least a general purpose computer to train and teach them what the model is supposed to do. So the biggest challenge that AI or machine learning faces is how you can make them execute or train on mobile platforms such as smartphones. Because in last three years, the growth of a smartphone or smart devices, compared to personal and like, PCs, you will see the growth of smartphone is much higher than, like people buying desktops or laptops. So future is definitely mobile platforms. Now, in countries like India, or China, more people have access to smartphone rather than having a desktop. But on the other hand, when you have AI, or machine learning models, which consume a lot of energy, and it also requires a lot of computational power, in that sense, running those model on smartphone become a challenging factor. So there's a new field in the artificial intelligence and machine learning research, which is called embedded machine learning or embedded artificial intelligence, where researchers are specifically building AI and ml models that can be trained and run on mobile back forms.

We just got one of those iRobot vacuums and I imagine that that's got some serious AI going on in there. It's pretty neat. I held off for quite a while. But now you know, this thing goes out a couple times a day, and just you know, vacuums and it knows where it stops and it knows where to pick back up after it's gone and recharged for a little bit. And I'm super excited for all this stuff that's gonna come I know a lot of people are scared, you know, Terminator type scenarios, which I know you've heard over time, but I think there's some great things on the horizon.

Absolutely, actually, funny thing. Last year, I gave a TED talk where I talked about the same thing. So the topic of the TED talk was, are we building artificial intelligence to support humanity. And the reason behind talking about this topic is a lot of people are skeptical about AI taking over or AI being harmful to their Creator. But the current state of the technology, or the use cases mostly are very different. Ai are not just enablers of a more positive and fulfilling life. At the same time, AI is helping us to do good in this society. And that's why like whenever someone says, Hey, is the AI going to like, be like the Terminator? All I can say that we don't know. But given the current scenario, I don't think that would be the case.

That's very optimistic. I'm glad to hear that because I don't know I've read a lot. And I listen to people who are much smarter than I am. And yeah, I'm just hopeful that that's not the case. So you started a business called nosh. But before we get into that, I want to talk about your personal experiences a little bit. I know at some point in your life, there was some dumpster diving that you had to do for food in order to survive and you had your parents were in a pretty serious car accident. Can you talk about that stuff for a little bit?

Yes, absolutely. So previously, I used to feel a bit embarrassed talking about these stuff because it puts me in a bit emotional vulnerable position. So the reason I started my business nosh technologies was because of From my personal experience with hunger. So, in 2013, I moved from India, to the UK to pursue my masters. And in 2014, when I was pursuing my Masters back in Manchester, my parents went through a car accident that cause severe injuries to my mother. And it also paralyzed my father. And at that time, to like financially support, my parents go through the medical treatment, I send back all my savings to them. After that, I realized that I don't have money to buy food for a week. So I used to live in student accommodation. And it was during the summertime, where like, during summer, students move out, they go back to their home. And what was happening when the students were moving out, they were throwing away completely edible items, which was in the back of the accommodation where we were living. So that was where like, in order to survive that whole week, I went into that like big scapes and gathered all the edibles and reusable stuff that I could, and I survived. But that also gave me the idea that so we were living in the same building where I was hungry. But at the same time, other people were throwing away stuff, which could be reused, especially food. And being a technologist, I was like, Okay, why not build a technology that could help like people to find such items from other people who might want to give it away. And end of 2014, I co develop and open source, world's first crowd food sharing platform where the user can share their food surplus with other people in need, who are living nearby. Now, that application also won an international award as well. And over the years, it also inspired many other entrepreneurs to come up with similar solution to reduce food waste, or based in general, because that is an has been a big social and environmental issue for a long time.

I love that, you know, during this past year, during COVID, I think where things were really tight and tough for a lot of people, and we weren't going shopping. Three families in our neighborhood, we're just kind of doing that via like Facebook Messenger or group text, like, Hey, we made lasagna tonight. And there's like five portions left Has anyone like not eaten yet and you know, want some of this and just doing more sharing, and it felt good, because it felt like you were more connected to your community and the needs of the people in your neighborhood?

Absolutely, absolutely. So I would always say if you have food surplus, never throw it away, if it can be consumed, and you don't want it, share it with someone who might want it. But one of the biggest issue that leg, I personally found out and also being the creator and early adopter of such such technology, right. So when the COVID started. So these kinds of platform where you have to share your food with other people, again, unless you know the other group of people, most people because they want to maintain social distancing. So you can see the role the volunteering role kind of plummeted because of COVID. Now, that another observation that we noticed is that food wastage actually went up for a lot of household because of the changing shopping routines. People were over buying food product, so that they don't have to go or shop more regularly. But that also ran the risk of food wastage, especially for especially for items with shorter shelf life. So now you have two components where you can see that people are afraid of kind of meeting up with new people to share their food surplus. And on the other hand, food wastage at home is going up. That's where my current venture nosh technologies came into place. So again, I went back to the whiteboard. And I asked, okay, how can I use technology to reduce food waste and address the challenges that are being phased out right now. And we came up with the idea of nosh, where we build an AI model that understands or learns the consumers food, buying and wasting habit, and then optimizes their food consumption. Thus, reducing food waste, and also saving money for the consumer.

I checked out the app a couple days ago and just started putting some things in to kind of see how it works. It's really neat. Right now you have to scan every item individually, is that right to put it into the app?

That is correct. So that is one of the biggest challenges that we are facing within the app itself, how you can make the app more fluid in working especially for let's say, being a consumer, if I have bought a lot of items, scanning each and every item is like could become cumbersome. Although we have added a new feature, which is you can also scan receipt. But this only helps makes entering the items a bit faster. But we are still not like it's not completely automatic. For that reason, we have developed a new intellectual property where you can take picture of the food items that you have got. And the app will automatically insert those or record those items within the app. But although we have also made this IP publicly available on our website, as well, and for anyone and everyone to use it, the biggest challenge is when you are building a commercial product like nosh executing such intellectual property could and unless you test them properly, for every possible devices, it's very difficult to make it as a commercial feature. That's why currently, although we have created the IP, but we are testing it thoroughly on several different devices, so that we can give a very good experience for our users. But that is a feature which is coming very soon.

Well, and I know now they have smart refrigerators that somewhat do this, don't they? Is that? Is that how that works? Like? I don't know, does it take a picture inside your fridge and tell you what you have? I don't? I haven't really looked into it that much. But do you know anything about smart refrigerator? Smart refrigerators?

Oh, yes. So previously, before not I used to work at Samsung, and Samsung is one of the leading manufacturer of search smart fridges. But they're it's more like you can keep track of what you're buying. But you still have to kind of hold it in front of the camera of the fridge and it will just read what it is and then you put the item in the fridge. So it is not very different from what nauseous doing. In fact, the entering the item with such fridge is a bit more time consuming than compared to nosh. Because the way we build the app is how you can make like recording of each item faster. Which when you compare with these smart fridges, most of them are still like, comparatively slow.

Do you have any idea how many people are using your app right now?

Oh, yes. So currently, we have helped more than 12,300 people across iOS and Android combined together. One nifty thing that we have done if you go to our website, nosh, tech, you will find that life statistics of how many food products are being saved using the platform. And not just that, through our research and studies. We have found out that per person per year, we ended up emitting 0.6 tons of carbon dioxide because of food wastage which is of course, detrimental to the environment. And hence, like we found through our like website, we show that whenever you're saving a food item from being thrown away, you are actually saving co2 emission and we have also Right now, if I can recall, currently saved more than 42 ton of co2 emission. And we are also helping to build a more sustainable planet in that way as well.

That's great. I mean, the combined saving money from not having to buy more food to saving the environment, it sounds like a no brainer. But I would have no idea how to build that technology. So I'm so glad people like you know how to do that stuff. Thank you so much, Chris. Do you have success stories from people who say things like, oh, I've started using your app, and I've, you know, stopped having to buy milk or stop throwing out milk or whatever?

Oh, yes, we have a lot. Okay, honestly, right. Now, I have to bring up my spreadsheet, which has those. So on top of my head, I cannot exactly go to one of them. But all I can say that through our feedback, we have found out that on an average consumer end up saving almost 60 pound or 60. UK Sterling worth of food every month. So in that way, people are kind of saving money. And at the same time saving food.

Yeah, for me, it's always the the protein stuff like the expensive stuff. And my in laws live with us. And they you know, they only want to go to grocery store once a week and they'll buy like chicken and ham and all this stuff because they help cook here. And it seems like every week, they're like, well, we're gonna have chicken for dinner tonight. But apparently it went out of date two days ago. It's like, we got to stop throwing away you know, it's like an $8 pack of chicken that goes right in the garbage because it's expired. And you know, I eat some stuff past the expiration date, but a lot of that stuff, you open it up and it smells funky. And there's no saving it.

Absolutely, absolutely. And honestly. Okay, I can share my story. Before nosh. Right. And this is not i'm not saying because of like promoting my app. But this is the reality that I used to face. Often time what happens when you have like, you have bought different types of edible. You put them in pantry, fridge and freezer, I am that kind of a person Somehow, I always neglect the freezer. So it's like I put something and so in my head, it's like, okay, it will like stay in the freezer, or it can last in the freezer for almost a month or bit over a month. So I don't have to worry about that. But somehow it ends up like three to four months, then you take it out. Although it could be edible. One thing I always mentioned that, even if something is way past the or past the expiry date or use by date, always try to check whether it can be consumed or not. Sometimes it could smell funky, or the texture might not be good. So in that case, if you think that it could be enable do it. But again, like always do check before throwing stuff out. But my issue used to be that when I take it out, open it up, like I open up the package from the freezer, I smell it, like usually doesn't smell but when you put it in the pan or like cook something, it completely, like disintegrates, kind of a scenario. And then you're like, Oh no, I ended up wasting that item.

I think people think they can just throw things in the freezer. And that makes them good forever. Like, yeah, it stops the breaking down. But then it comes out all we are like you get freezer burn, it gets like an off flavor. The ice crystals in there, break down the cells and you take it out and you have like watery meat, I would prefer to just eat fresh stuff when I've got it.

Exactly. And that's like one of the good things is currently nauseous helping me to work with my freezer more like better, because I that that was one of the places where I always neglected. And now like nosh, two three days before it kind of before the use by date will start reminding me Hey, you should start thinking about using it. So that's like my personal success story with not

so as a business. How does this work? Like you've made an app and a platform that's free to use? I'm sure it takes a ton of time. So if it's free, how are you able to keep operating? I just you know, I'm always interested to learn how businesses like this work.

So currently, although what people are using with the notion app, it's only one portion of the whole business. We are about to launch a new product which are more For b2b, and we are also going to empower the user to earn for themselves. Because one thing that I have noticed in the business world platform that grows faster over time as businesses are the businesses that are empowering the users themselves. So although I cannot give you full detail of what we are launching because of the IPS involved, but we are going to launch that by the end of August, and it's going to be more with b2b and something where we are empowering the users themselves. We like everyone earns a portion of the money. I usually

asked what's next. So I guess that's what's next.

That is only one what is next. Another thing is enosh is also currently one of the only platform in the world that is currently understanding or building up data that how people buy and waste food, which is very useful going forward, because that could be used to optimize food production. And we have found out that a lot of the food wastage happens during the food production. So if you can optimize how farmers produce food, in that way, you are optimizing food wastage, overall. Moreover, you are helping the farmers to save money as well. For this, we have also launched blockchain based intellectual property where we are doing exactly this.

So are we just gonna continue to see AI grow? I mean, I'm sure we're gonna see it everywhere, but in the food space as time goes on.

I hope so. But the biggest issue is finding expertise from AI. A lot of companies at the moment are not using AI in this space, food management or food consumption space, is because AI experts usually are very expensive. Moreover, because it's still kind of math in space. So a lot of entrepreneurs, if they are not from AI, or technology background, they find it a bit difficult to understand how to work with such technology. Now, for me, it's kind of I'm from that background. So implementing such technology is easier. But AI, I would definitely say it's the future for like food industry, because it's helping, or it could help in so many different ways.

Yeah, I love reading about this stuff. I don't have any background in science or anything like this, but I just find this stuff intriguing. So I'm always trying to learn from the best and the brightest, who are some people that you admire, like whose work you really enjoy digging into? So is it from the AI space? Or food? Or in general? Like, what do you really enjoy learning about? And who do you like learning from?

So definitely yoshua bengio, and young lakelyn. They are like technically being called the grand fathers of modern AI. And they are also like the big brain behind building what AI is today, in a way. So their contribution is mostly towards computer vision based AI that could perform tasks such as understanding whether like, okay, in a basic sense, or the simpler, simpler application would be something like How can a smartphone understand whether it's a dog or a cat from the picture. But the application of this currently is so much more sophisticated, and huge. It's kind of like mind baffling. Sometimes even AI is better than human being in recognizing or understanding things where AI could outperform us. Ai currently is or has been used in so many different industry I would say I can't think of a single industry that is not using AI. So every industry is being touched using machine learning and AI models. I personally me and my team, the research team at the University of Essex, we are working with AI such as how to understand and predict weathers how to help a smart crop generation. So that like, you know, in drought areas or a bear farmers have less resources, how you can use AI to improve the production, or how you can improve the production with smart crop itself. So these kind are like some of the examples that we are working with. Now, on the other hand nauseous the commercial branch of I would say, what the commercial application of air where my PhD research was huge, like, actually on how you can build and develop AI for mobile platform so that AI is much more power efficient, but at the same time can perform equally well as its bigger brother and sister, which could be run on normal computer. And I realized that that could be used for something more real. Like it's not just research, but you can take the research and make it use for something more that could help other people. And that's how, when we were facing the problem of food wastage, we realized, okay, why not build an AI model that could optimize food consumption, and ultimately reduce food waste? So AI is, again, it would depend on what is the use case, and how we can fit the AI model to do that task.

I'm really interested in how kitchens, I think are also going to change. I mean, you're looking at food production, but also see a lot of things in in the day to day kitchen space that could be improved by that. So I'll be interested to see how that evolves?

Oh, absolutely. Actually, there are a few companies, I wouldn't name exactly which company but there are few companies who are also AI to help chefs. So how they are doing, let's say you have bought a number of items. And now the AI will help the chef to come up with recipes, which matches with the groceries that you have bought in the kitchen and come up with the dishes in that way. First of all, AI is helping the chef to come up with a new recipes. Moreover, it's also helping the chef to reduce food waste as well, because it's only using the items that the chef has in the kitchen. So this is one of the example that is currently becoming popular.

So we're already letting the robots create the chef specials in the restaurants

yet, but one thing is that you can never replace a human being when it comes to innovation. Currently, there are a few models especially like have you heard of G p, d. Three. Now. So its model developed by open AI, which is one of the CO founded company by Ilan musk. So using GPT, three, you can like that model can actually create completely new recipes. Sometimes these recipes are great. But at the end of the day, you can never beat the infusion of the human being. You can never beat the infusion of an experienced chef. So EA can become an equal partner in this. But I still don't think that they can completely overtake or replace us in the task.

Yeah, it sounds like it can get you close. I mean, I'd love something where you put in literally 1000s of recipes into a database and then it knows what you have and could suggest them to you just as a jumping off like, oh, I've got everything to make a clams casino. Maybe I'll run that tonight.

Absolutely. Although I don't know, have you noticed in no rush. So when you have inserted few items, you can select some of the items and you also get recipe suggestion from there.

I haven't played with it enough, but I'm gonna I'm gonna start doing that I have to go through and scan more things in my fridge.

Fair fair. But yeah, that is also one feature that we are currently offering. But again, we are trying to incorporate more and more sophisticated AI model into it. But again, I would say like what Wherever we can never replace human being AI is an enabler for a more positive and fulfilling life. But at the end of the day, we humans can never be replaced.

Would you like to cook yourself?

Absolutely. Especially when I'm on a date?

So do you have good cooking skills?

Okay, this is something very subjective, right? Like, I enjoy my own food when I cook. So far, most of my dates have never complained. Now, I don't know whether they haven't complained because we were dating. But again, like, I kind of I like to experiment when it comes to cooking. So yeah, when when I'm with someone, when I'm on a date, I really enjoy cooking. Like for the other person?

What are some of your favorite foods that you would never let go to waste? What what some stuff that you just eat as quickly as it comes into the house.

So honestly, they would be most probably something which will be considered as junk food. So burgers, Oh, my goodness. Let's say if I bought like a burger patty for next three days to go. Somehow I will end up in a large batch. And I love burgers so much that which was supposed to last for last three to four days. I just finished it in one day. And then I realized, oh, should

you just eating burgers? breakfast, lunch and dinner?

Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, most people say What's wrong with you? Like I still remember some time ago when I used to work as a software engineer for a company back in Manchester. So I took burger and fries for my breakfast in the office. And my manager would say, Are you okay? Are you fine? But it's just me I just love like burger and chips.

Well, I do you think the dynamics of how many people and who live in your household combined with food waste, do way into a lot of that. Because right now, you know, I have a wife and two kids and my in laws live here. So they're six people. So there's a lot of people to consume the food. And we don't have to have the same thing multiple times. But I do remember when I was single and live by myself, you know, I'd want a taco salad. And I would buy a whole bag of chips and a whole head lettuce and a pound of beef and all this stuff, and you'd make it for one person. And then it's like, shit, I gotta eat this the next three days, or else it's gonna go bad. So you end up eating it all the time. So I do think a lot of that plays into what you're eating, you know, based solely on who's in your house.

Absolutely. And I couldn't agree more. Because you're not just eating for yourself. You're eating with other people in the household. So that do affect how and what you're eating. Honestly, right now I'm living a single life. And I love having food. What I want at any time, like yesterday, like I wouldn't call it yesterday. So I went to bed at eight in the morning. But I was

not. That's not a normal thing. I think you and I talked on the phone at some ungodly hour or something because of the time difference and I was surprised that you were still up or I saw you on clubhouse at what would have been like five in the morning or three in the morning or something one time.

That's another reason being because currently my other project clouted that is we are working my colleagues are based in New York, Austin and Los Angeles. So we still work at the Los Angeles time. So in that sense, like a I ended up going to bed at eight, but yesterday I literally had three bags of flaming hot cheetos at seven in the morning before going to bed.

What a way to start today or anyone right for me I went to bed. Well, what do you have that you want to share with our listeners before we get out of here today? Anything else?

One big tip that I would recommend to anyone and everyone that at a personal level, we often time do not realize how we are wasting food because it could be very little and in our head we still think that no no we are not wasting food. But when you start observing yourself or take notes, you will suddenly realize that you do end up with some food wastage which I know you might not be able to, like send the food back to like poor children in developing countries but You're wasting your own money. So the least you could do is be more aware of how you're consuming your food and how you're wasting it. It doesn't have to be like you don't have to use an app like nosh. You can just use pen and paper to just do it. But I would still urge everyone that right now food wastage is not just an individual problem. It's a social and environmental issue. Because food wastage contributes not just to like wasting your money, but at the same time, it's harmful to the environment, because you're like ending up in co2 emission. So when you start taking care of these stuff, when you start taking food wastage more seriously, you're ultimately not just helping yourself, but your future generation to live in a better world.

I'll say almost 20 years ago, I worked in a restaurant and they made you weigh everything that you throw away every day, and then they logged it and put it into a system that then I guess, adjusted how much you should be cooking every day. You know, it wasn't a fancy restaurant was like a fast casual restaurant. But I thought that was really interesting. And I've only worked at one place that does that. I don't know if more places do that. But I thought it was interesting that every day you just logged your waste, and then they kind of base the next day's production off of what you were throwing away from the day before.

Yeah, actually, currently, there are a certain several organizations, especially in the UK, who are also urging restaurants and supermarkets, and also local shops, that if they end up with food surplus, it's better to either give them away for free, or find someone who will buy them at a reduced price. And you will also find that recently, there are a couple of applications apps as well, that are becoming popular in the space. But as nosh technologies, we are also launching something close related to this very soon as well.

I look forward to hearing more about that. And I'm gonna keep playing with the app. And I'll let you know what I find. Hopefully, it'll prevent me from wasting more food than I have to.

Thank you so much grace. And I would really appreciate feedback from you and the listeners. Because ultimately, we are not just building the enosh platform as a mean of business. my end goal is to reduce food waste. So any feedback from the listener that could help us to build a better platform to serve them, ultimately, is doing good in the long term. So I really appreciate the feedback from you and the listeners. Thank you so much, Chris. Oh,

you're welcome. Thanks so much for coming on the show. And for our listeners. You can find it on both iOS and for Android, correct? Yes, that is great. All right. Well go check that out. And to all of our listeners. This has been Chris with the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. As always, you can find us at Chefs Without restaurants.com.org and on all social media platforms. Thanks so much for listening and have a great day. Thanks for listening to the Chefs Without Restaurants podcast. And if you're interested in being a guest on the show, for sponsoring the show, please let us know. We can be reached at Chefs Without restaurants@gmail.com Thanks so much.