10135651Automating food redistributionClosedGrant for R&DInnovate UKI am Dini McGrath, the founder of The Wonki Collective (TWC), a B2B technology dedicated to revolutionising the UK food manufacturing sector by tackling food waste - the food industry being one of the largest CO2 emitters, responsible for around one-third of all GHG emissions across the world. Together with my female co-founder Alina Sartogo, we are building solutions that create a financial incentive for food manufacturers to reduce food waste and optimise resource efficiency by creating a more circular food supply chain. **Project** This project is about expanding TWC's existing technology to all food waste streams across all stages of the manufacturing supply chain, notably in terms of by-products, work-in-progress goods, and finished packaged goods. I think this could revolutionize how food manufacturers think and manage food waste, with huge potential benefits for their finances, the environment and society. For this Project, I have lined up the support of Nestle, specifically their biggest factory in the UK, which is in York -- which will be providing knowledge and data to develop the expanded technology and then test the full solution. TWC's technology partner, Mezz.AI, is also onboard and will be leading all of software and AI developments. **Female Leadership and Innovation** Founded in 2022, TWC is a 100% female-owned business driven by a mission to create a more sustainable food system. Since launching their solution for surplus food ingredients in December 2023, TWC has collaborated with over 190 food manufacturers, identifying over £4M worth of ingredients at risk of becoming waste. TWC also won several prizes for its work, most recently the Footprints Award for waste management, one of the most important industry award, where they were competing against the likes of KFC, Cisco and other big players. As leaders in innovation, me and Alina are on a mission to inspire other female innovators, demonstrating the impact of female-led initiatives in addressing societal and environmental challenges. Having both had kids since launching TWC, we successfully went through the challenges of balancing mum and entrepreneur lives. We are strong believers that maternity in fact enabled us to achieve more with TWC and go further with it than we would otherwise have.