“The aim is to reduce operating costs and the ecological footprint of kitchens in hotels, restaurants and cafés”
A new smart kitchen system will enable sustainable management of the HORECA sector and reduce its water and energy consumption
A consortium of companies and technology centres have joined forces to develop a smart system for the sustainable management of kitchens in the HORECA sector, by means of energy and resource optimisation. The challenge is to reduce not only operating costs, but also the ecological footprint of kitchens in hotels, restaurants and cafés.
Spain is the country with the largest number of bars and restaurants per person. There are more than 277,000 establishments, employing 1.7 million people and accounting for 4.7% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), according to the UVE Market 2021 report.
The HORECA sector, made up of restaurants, hotels and the catering industry, is a key sector for both the Spanish and the Basque economies. As a result, there is a high energy demand in this sector, where 66 % of consumption takes place in kitchens.
A consortium in charge of the development of the new smart kitchen system
The project is led by:
- Etxesoft, which offers services in the ICT field
- The Loaf Bakery, an artisan bakery with several establishments in Donostia/San Sebastián; a cooperative of catering services for groups
- Ausolan
- Icelan (TEC), which carry out air conditioning, ventilation and energy-efficiency projects
- BCC Innovation, Basque Culinary’s gastronomy technology centre for the transfer of knowledge between gastronomy professionals and business sectors
- TECNALIA’s role in this project involves the digitalisation of active systems through monitoring sensors and it will also contribute to the analytical and predictive exploitation of data, developing algorithms.
Recommendation of optimised behavioural patterns
The solution is based on active software that displays and connects certain consumptions with various tasks or activities for the production of a product, as well as their associated costs. All this will be done through a methodology that actively manages which processes are active to recommend optimised behaviour patterns, such as, for example, turning off an oven in advance, turning it on at a certain time, ordering actions, regulating the power of the extraction depending on the process underway, etc.
This project will be developed over two years, until 2025, and is supported by the Basque Government through its HAZITEK programme.
