Foodforecast ultra-fresh demand forecasting

Foodforecast is a Cologne-based AI foodtech company founded in 2018 by Justus Lauten and Jan Brormann. It addresses food waste and lost sales in products with a shelf life of only a few hours to one day, such as bakery goods and fresh convenience food.

The platform produces AI-based demand and production forecasts for ultra-fresh items and turns them into automated production and ordering plans. It is used in food service, bakery and retail across several thousand stores in Europe; named customers include SSP Germany and Eat Happy. The site also presents an AI assistant called ARTI.

• Ultra-fresh forecasting: AI predicts demand for items with shelf lives of hours to one day.
• Production planning: forecasts are converted into production plans for stores and bakeries.
• Automated ordering: ordering is generated automatically from the forecast.
• Intra-day updates: forecasts are refreshed several times per day.
• ARTI assistant: an AI assistant is offered alongside the forecasting product.

A bakery chain in Vietnam could plan daily production per store to cut unsold bread. Convenience-store operators could forecast fresh meals and sandwiches. Hotel and airport food outlets could align intra-day preparation with traffic.

Company-reported figures: food waste reduced by up to 30% and sales raised by up to 11%. More than 90% of previously manual planning steps are automated. Customers have collectively prevented over 8,800 tons of food waste. Separate solutions exist for food service, bakeries and supermarkets.

Retailers and food-service chains face pressure to cut food waste and margin loss on fresh products. In Vietnam and Southeast Asia, bakery chains, convenience stores and cafe groups with short shelf-life items have a similar planning need as modern retail grows.

Foodforecast Technologies GmbH, Cologne. Series A of EUR 8 million (2026-02) co-led by SHIFT Invest and ECBF with Future Food Fund and Aeronaut Invest, backed by InvestEU. An earlier 2024 round exceeded EUR 3 million. Commercial launch in 2022.