“A richer life to me means contributing to having society live a more balanced life with their surroundings.”
An entrepreneur and zero-waste advocate.
With a background in pharmaceutical chemistry and analytics consultancy, as well as years of experience in the hospitality industry, Olaf van der Veen was perfectly placed to tackle an issue responsible for up to 10% of global greenhouse gas emissions: food waste.
Olaf had a food waste epiphany after being the last to leave a hotel buffet and seeing how much was left uneaten by guests. Aware of the huge contribution food waste makes to global carbon emissions, he subsequently devoted himself to helping the hospitality industry improve efficiency and reduce the amount of food being thrown away. His social enterprise, Orbisk, launched the first-ever fully automated food waste monitor in 2019, allowing restaurants to save around 4,000 kilos of food waste on average.
Under Olaf’s leadership as CEO, Orbisk has recently entered into a partnership with Unilever Food solutions and has won €1.2 million in Eurostars funding for their FOOD FIGHT project.