Food waste: the fix is people, not just technology

Oct 07, 2026

food

On a busy packaging line, an alert flags a label change. It’s the fourth notification that shift, buried among others, in a language the operators don’t read fluently. They miss it. The impact: hours of rework and thousands of euros of waste cost. Was it a technology failure? No. An operator failure? Not really either. What failed was everything around it. Raf Swinnen, business development lead at Maecos, and Evelien Taillieu, senior consultant and connected worker specialist at delaware, explain why people, not platforms, are what actually cuts food waste, or lets it slide.

When more tools mean less clarity

Ask the average operator how many digital systems they’re supposed to use on a shift. The answer is rarely one. Quality checklists in one app, maintenance logs in another, safety procedures on a shared drive, shift communication on a whiteboard: while the tools multiply, the clarity doesn’t.

“People don’t see the forest through the trees anymore,” says Raf Swinnen. “The first digital tool may feel useful. The second too. But by the fourth, operators feel like they’re spending more time managing the tools than doing their actual job.”

If technology is imposed from above rather than developed with the operator and the supervisor, it simply won't work.

Evelien Taillieu, Connected Worker Specialist at delaware

Small error, big waste

That fragmentation has a direct cost. When an operator is juggling multiple systems, the chance of a mispacked product, a mislabelled batch, or a missed quality check goes up.

“Getting the right product into the right packaging with the right label, starting up a cleaning cycle checking the installation before startup: it all sounds simple,” Raf explains. “In practice, human error is just one distraction away, and the consequences are immediate. Because lines run fast, one incorrect pallet can mean hundreds or thousands of units that need to be reworked, destroyed or, in the worst case, recalled. The direct and indirect costs add up faster than most people realize.”

Design starts on the floor, not in the meeting room

More tools to the rescue? “Technology only helps if people actually use it,” says Evelien Taillieu. “That sounds obvious, but it’s where most digitalization programmes quietly fail. If technology is imposed from above rather than developed with the operator, it simply won’t work. Developing tools implies looking at the full operator experience. It’s about making sure the person standing at that machine, in that environment, under that time pressure, can actually use what is built.”

The details matter more than project managers expect. The size of a tablet. The speed of the Wi-Fi connection on the shop floor. Whether the interface loads in two seconds or ten. Whether the language is right. Any of these friction points can tip an operator back towards paper.

And there is another role that consistently determines whether a digitalization effort on the shop floor succeeds or stalls: the supervisor. “If the supervisor doesn’t believe in it, it stops there,” Evelien continues. “Their authority is real, and their scepticism or enthusiasm is contagious.”

Arousing that enthusiasm, however, is not that easy: ”Supervisors in food manufacturing are typically experienced operators who have been promoted for their technical knowledge. Yet the role of the modern supervisor has changed from expert and executor to coach and enabler. That transition is rarely explicitly supported.”

Start small

Maecos addresses these challenges with a SaaS platform that brings together everything a frontline team needs: work instructions, training, checklists, and team communication, in one unified interface.

“We want to break down the walls,” Raf says. “We don’t just design for the operator on the line, but also for the team leader, the quality specialist, and the maintenance technician. So, instead of the operator keeping a paper logbook and the maintenance team working in a separate system, everyone looks at the same data. That shared reality transforms collaboration.”

The key to get everyone on board: start small. “We always advise customers to begin with one module, usually documentation or training,” Raf explains, “because that’s often where the immediate pain is. Once operators feel heard, for example because they can upload a short video of a problem during the night shift and receive feedback by morning, they ask for more.”

We don't just design for the operator on the line, but also for the team leader, the quality specialist, and the maintenance technician.

Raf Swinnen, Maecos

Results that outlast the project

The business case for investing in the people side of food waste reduction is not just theoretical. Maecos’ platform has been running at several major food manufacturers in Belgium for three to four years. At one of them, losses caused by operational errors dropped by more than half a million euros per year. More importantly, those gains proved durable. “Once people fall into a digital routine, the results stick, even when staff turn over,” Raf notes. “The knowledge is in the system, not just in one person’s head. A new operator picks up where the previous one left off.”

Creating that digital routine requires more than a new tool. To deliver lasting results, the tool has to fit the way operators work, make decisions and interact with the systems around them.

That’s where the delaware - Maecos collaboration creates value. “Maecos gives operators the right insight at the right moment, so they know what to do next without having to guess,” Evelien explains. “We make sure that fits within a broader operational vision. That means guiding the roadmap and the strategy, and connecting the right systems, like ERP, WMS, and MES, and the data sources behind the scenes. But it’s also about the human side: making sure operators and supervisors trust the data and the tools, so that they change their behaviour on the floor. Technology without that shift won’t cut a gram of waste.”

“The starting point is simple,” Raf concludes. “Together, we make things easier for the operator. Because easier for the operator means smoother for the organisation.”Technology enables that change. Integration makes it usable. Adoption makes it stick.

Fight Food Waste Week

Every day, raw materials, water, energy, time, and profit disappear from your production process. You know it's happening, but you don't know exactly where, why, or what to do first.

delaware's Fight Food Waste Week helps you make the invisible visible.

Evelien Taillieu

Connected Worker Specialist

Evelien leads delaware’s connected worker practice, focusing on the operator experience and the change that makes digital tools actually stick on the shop floor.

Connect with Evelien on LinkedIn

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