Foodforecast: against the waste we chose to ignore

Roughly a third of all food produced globally never gets eaten. In Europe alone, the food system generates well over 50 million tonnes of waste every year, with losses occurring at every stage of the supply chain. Across the food retail and food service sectors, overproduction routinely represents both a direct financial loss and a material environmental one.

Cologne-based Foodforecast, founded in 2018 by Justus Lauten, a computer science graduate, and Jan Brormann, an industrial engineer with scaling expertise, set out to address this bottleneck. The company's origin is interesting: their first clients were two independent bakeries struggling with overproduction, and the initial product was built specifically around their needs. From that starting point, Foodforecast has grown into a platform serving supermarkets and food service operators across several locations in Europe.

The platform generates AI-driven demand forecasts - updated multiple times throughout the day for ultra-fresh goods - and uses them to automate both production planning and supplier ordering. It integrates into existing operational workflows without requiring process overhaul, and customers report that upwards of 90% of ordering decisions are now handled automatically. The measurable outcomes, across its client base, include waste reductions and sales uplifts.

In early 2026, Foodforecast closed an €8 million Series A co-led by SHIFT Invest and ECBF, with backing from existing investors Future Food Fund and Aeronaut Invest. The capital will be used for European expansion and further development of the forecasting platform across more complex food operations.

Sources: Foodforecast | Crunchbase

Founders: Justus Lauten, Jan Brormann