AI Tech Assessing Food Waste Installed at Elizabethtown College, Pa.

Making a difference with its waste output, Elizabethtown College is implementing new technology to prevent food waste.

Elizabethtown College, situated in Pennsylvania, welcomes KITRO to the campus. KITRO is an AI technology from a Swiss company by the same name. The AI tech will help reduce food waste in the college’s marketplace.

“We are the first college in the United States to utilize KITRO,” Austin Benner, the general manager of dining services for the college said.

“It helps us track exactly what food is being thrown away, what exactly is being wasted, and we will be able to collect that data and use that data for future menu creation and also to help curb some of the food waste that occurs on campus.”

The technology works by assessing what food waste students bring to trashcans. Students dump their food waste and scraps into a trash can that sits on a scale. The trash can also has a camera above it which takes a picture of the waste and detects what food is being discarded. That data is then sent to the college describing what food is being wasted the most.

“The machine can actually distinguish between broccoli that has gone bad versus broccoli that’s thrown away because too much was prepped versus broccoli that was on someone’s plate,” registered dietician Savannah Greiner said.

KITRO was installed on the campus earlier this week and Elizabethtown expects its first data sample by the end of the month.

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