Cookwala / Impact
Impact, with sources and labels
Every number here is measured by the source named, modelled by our simulators under stated assumptions, or assumed as a planning figure. Nothing is a field result of Cookwala: no pilot has run.
Hunger
| Fact | Figure | Label and source |
|---|---|---|
| People who faced hunger in 2023 | about 733 million | measured FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP, WHO, SOFI 2024 |
| People moderately or severely food insecure in 2023 | about 2.3 billion | measured SOFI 2024 |
| Food lost between harvest and retail | about 14 % of food produced | measured FAO, SOFA 2019 (UNEP rounds the same FAO figure to 13 %) |
| Food wasted at retail, food service and homes in 2022 | about 1.05 billion tonnes; about 132 kg per person | measured UNEP Food Waste Index 2024 |
Mechanisms
- Surplus offers that reach a kitchen before the food spoils, with a cold-chain check at every handover
- Impact counted the same way at every site, so programs can compare and improve
- Later: aggregated demand and supply signals so less is grown and moved to be thrown away (experimental, gated on competition-law review)
Modelled, illustrative
The country simulator's mixed rollout rescues meals equal to about 4.7 % of what its fictional food-insecure population needs modelled. The world simulator's "protocol, no robots" scenario reaches about 40 million of roughly 770 million hungry people (the simulator's assumed baseline, 5 % above the 733 million measured above; the model was built on an earlier estimate) through rescue modelled. Both say the same thing: rescue matters and is not enough.
What it does not do: address poverty, conflict, climate shocks, prices or policy, which drive most hunger.
Health
| Fact | Figure | Label and source |
|---|---|---|
| Illnesses from unsafe food each year | about 600 million; about 420,000 deaths | measured WHO, global burden of foodborne diseases, 2015 |
| Salt intake versus the guideline | adults average about 11 g a day (2021 estimate); WHO recommends under 5 g | measured WHO sodium reduction fact sheet |
| Deaths attributable to high sodium each year | about 1.9 million | measured WHO, Global report on sodium intake reduction, 2023 |
| People relying on polluting cooking fuels | about 2.1 billion; about 3.2 million deaths a year | measured WHO household air pollution fact sheet, 2024 |
Mechanisms
- Critical control points, hot-holding, cooling and reheating limits enforced on the device and recorded
- Rule packs that flag sodium, free sugars, saturated fat and fruit and vegetables on menus
- Care rules for children, pregnancy and older adults
- A review record so dietitians and food-safety officers can vouch for a pack
Limits
Nothing diagnoses, treats or computes therapeutic diets. Population guidance only; clinician-set targets stay local. Health claims policy. Clean cooking is in the picture but not in the model yet: the simulators do not count wood and charcoal cooking or its health effects (listed as next).
Environment
Food loss and waste account for about 8 to 10 % of global greenhouse-gas emissions measured · UNEP 2024.
modelled In the world simulator, "many robots with the protocol" cuts all food lost or wasted by about 4.1 % and emissions by about 5.2 % over five years against the same world without them; "many robots alone" cuts household waste but raises losses before homes by about 3 % (a bullwhip effect). Robot electricity, about 164 TWh over five years in that scenario, is counted. These are the model's outputs under its assumptions, listed on the simulator page.
Economy and work
modelled The city simulator estimates about 5 USD per person per month less food spend and about 10 hours per home per month less cooking and shopping with robot cooks, hardware not included. No figure for jobs is given anywhere on this site; new roles are named (recipe engineers, food-robot technicians, certifiers, rule-pack reviewers) without numbers. Humans can always cook; a labour voice has a seat in governance.
Culture
No number. The claim is qualitative and checkable: a Cookwala recipe carries the cook's name, the dish's identity (what is essential, what is flexible, what is never added), text in the cook's language, and a signature. Machines that cook it inherit the recipe as working knowledge, with credit. Who inherits a recipe?
What we will measure when there is something to measure
| Measure | Method | Defined in |
|---|---|---|
| Kilograms rescued, meals served, people reached, nutrition pass rate, cost per meal, time to claim, claim rate, safety block findings, safety incidents | computed from Offer, Claim, Handover and Distribution documents by an open tool | Humanitarian Profile, ImpactSummary |
| Verified cooks: executions that ran a signed recipe end to end with a conforming log | execution logs with consent | Strategy, section 11 |
| Independent implementations passing conformance | published conformance reports | Certification path |
| Agent-safety results per model | the benchmark, with model id, date and config hash | Agent-safety benchmark |
What we don't know yet
- Whether a food bank rescues more with the profile than with its current method: the pilot protocol exists; no pilot has run.
- Whether the envelopes are right for every cuisine: a food scientist has not reviewed them.
- Whether the simulators' behavioural assumptions hold: they are listed and adjustable.
- How large rebound effects are.
What went wrong
- Nothing has been deployed, so nothing has gone wrong in the field.
- In the repository: the first one-liner overstated what existed and was changed; the first Mission schema accepted unknown fields and was made strict; the first simulators used a strawman baseline and gained a fair baseline and ranges. The critiques.
Sources
FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO, The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 · FAO, The State of Food and Agriculture 2019 · UNEP, Food Waste Index Report 2024 · WHO, WHO estimates of the global burden of foodborne diseases, 2015 · WHO, Global report on sodium intake reduction, 2023, and the salt reduction fact sheet · WHO fact sheet Household air pollution, 2024. Figures are quoted as the sources publish them, rounded; the organizations are sources, not partners. Full page: docs/IMPACT.md.