Timo Boldt, Founder and CEO, Gousto

Timo Boldt, Founder and CEO of Gousto, discusses the evolution of the recipe-kit space in the UK, how he’s using artificial intelligence to build an industry-leading customer proposition, and his focus on reducing emissions in the food industry.

On using technology and data to reduce emissions: “What goes onto the menu is not chosen by a chef, but by an algorithm. And that's optimizing for taste scores, for retention, for customer satisfaction. And over time we started putting CO2 tagging into the library so that we can now generate the exact same kind of customer satisfaction, but at a much lower CO2 rate. And that's been really amazing because as a customer, you don't notice any difference. It still tastes the same way, but it's kind of gradually making the menu less carbon intense.”

On eliminating food waste from the supply chain: “If you push salads and meat into 10,000 stores across the UK, you end up wasting an enormous amount. Whereas if you centralize it and you know exactly how many people want to order what type of recipe, you pretty much place an order based on forecast. You only order what you need. You go straight to the farm. Whereas the supermarkets go to the intermediary and the food processing company… And so, we have a much, much shorter, more localized, more seasonal supply chain.”

 

Download Transcript

This episode was recorded on November 21, 2022.