To avoid penalties, some hotels have turned to an unusual solution: Pancho, an artificial intelligence<\/a> system with an electronic eye, which sits above their kitchen bin.<\/p>\n Pancho looks like a chunky tablet. Trained on more than a million images of buffet dishes, it identifies and records what is being scraped away, while a sensor weighs the amount that is being thrown out. <\/p>\n The data is analysed in the cloud, giving hotel managers insights into what is being wasted, which ingredients to buy or avoid, when to stop replenishing the buffet, and how factors such as guests\u2019 nationalities, ages and even the weather affect consumption.<\/p>\n GERM\u00c1N MAYMO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n \u2022 18 of the best all-inclusive hotels in Spain<\/a><\/p>\n Visionary Hospitality, the company behind the Buffet Waste tool, also offers People Counter, which monitors how many guests are coming and going from the dining room so the output of the kitchen can be adjusted. <\/p>\n \u201cWe started by looking for the savings by controlling the amount of food that goes out to the buffet and just sits there,\u201d said Antonio \u00c1lvarez, the chief executive. \u201cBut now we have created the tools with Pancho to control the actual production process.\u201d<\/p>\n Breakfast at the GF Gran Costa Adeje hotel<\/p>\n GERM\u00c1N MAYMO FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES<\/p>\n Different clients at each hotel will have different tastes \u2014 and Pancho can also help the kitchen to react to those appropriately, \u00c1lvarez said. \u201cTypes of fruit, for example, or eggs and sausages \u2014 even the way that they are presented changes, thanks to the data we have from Pancho.<\/p>\n \u201cPeople have also changed their attitudes about throwing away food. We know that Spaniards leave a lot of food on their plates while other guests from Nordic countries are more aware of the issue of food waste and leave a lot less. All of that data is collected and organised and influences the production process and also the purchasing, so that less food is thrown away.\u201d <\/p>\n The product is being used by about 40 clients. The Lopesan Hotel Group, which runs several hotels in Gran Canaria and Fuerteventura, expect to reduce food waste by 72 per cent this year after introducing Pancho \u2014 saving a total of 209,000kg of food and more than \u20ac726,000.<\/p>\n JEFFREY GREENBERG\/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP\/GETTY IMAGES<\/p>\n Rodrigo P\u00e9rez, Lopesan\u2019s communications director, said that in some of the company\u2019s hotels, eggs, fruit and bread had been identified as high waste and quantities adjusted accordingly. \u201cA significant change can be seen between what happens in a family hotel compared to an adults-only hotel, or even depending on the nationality,\u201d he said. \u201cIn other hotels, food was being discarded due to its presentation.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Hands](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/\/7b7d1482-6e29-4544-9690-58dc36dcee8a.jpg\")
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