REFLOW | BOTTO – Food I don't throw away

Developed by OpenDot as part of the European REFLOW project, BOTTO is an IoT device designed to reduce food waste. It is a system that connects wholesalers at the Milan fruit and vegetable market with the RECUP association via a bot on Telegram, digitizing and cataloging surpluses and optimizing the recovery process. Thanks to BOTTO, over 9,500 kg of fruit and vegetables were redistributed to the Croce Rossa Italiana in just a few days. A concrete example of how technology can enable circular and socially impactful solutions.

BOTTO sends a message to the ReflowOS digital platform monitored by a Telegram bot, which alerts RECUP of the new donation and allows the selected goods to be redistributed to the Italian Red Cross. This is done in less than half an hour, and with process precise and constant monitoring. The ReflowOS platform is based on blockchain, which allows the donated product’s supply chain to be digitally traced and certified.

Complex issues such as food waste in urban marketplaces, need to be answered with simple and innovative solutions, which use the contribution of players involved from the project’s early stages, and includes the correct framing of the issue and co-creation of the final solution.

Within six months, OpenDot interviewed the Municipality of Milan, SO.GE.M.I, vegetable market wholesalers, Recup and the Italian Red Cross volunteers, analysed processes and conducted participative sessions to design, develop and test a solution to enable a virtuous process using a simple, fast and intuitive service.

BOTTO was designed and developed by OpenDot as part of Reflow, the European Horizon 2020 project to change urban material flows using circular regenerative solutions in synergy with companies, politics and citizens. 

OpenDot and its Milan partners made Milan more sustainable by analysing and acting on food waste in urban and peri-urban areas. 

The other 27 European partners worked on different thematic pilots to make cities more circular, and included: Amsterdam on textile waste, Berlin on the recovery of wastewater in heating systems, Paris on the reuse of materials used during trade fairs and fashion shows, Vejle in Denmark on the issue of plastics, and Cluj-Napoca in Romania on urban energy monitoring.

Process results, tools used, and solutions developed can be found on the Reflow website: https://reflowproject.eu/blog/new-iot-device-and-telegram-bot-against-food-waste-botto/