Mandhir Singh and Vishnu Priyan Mahendran
Harnessing data to reduce food waste
As Canada’s first on-demand personal chef service, Easy Platter offers a unique approach to meal preparation by enabling customers to hire personal chefs to plan menus and prepare high-quality, personalized meals.
To address operational challenges, Easy Platter collaborated with Dr. Yasushi Akiyama, a professor of Mathematics and Computing Science. Together, they designed a framework to calculate both ingredient costs and potential food waste for selected meal plans. With support from Vishnu Priyan Mahendran, a 2022 graduate student in the Master of Computing and Data Analytics program, they developed formulas and integrated them into the company’s system, improving efficiency.
“Dr. Akiyama was extremely helpful in not just identifying great talent at Saint Mary’s University but also collaborating with us throughout the project,” said Mandhir Singh, Founder of Easy Platter and 2012 MBA Graduate from Saint Mary’s University. “Vishnu has been a huge asset for Easy Platter and has contributed to multiple complex projects.” Vishnu has been employed with Easy Platter since he graduated.
The second phase of the project linked ingredient data with its supply chain. This integration offers automated insights into food waste, which helps the team track sustainability. With nearly 4,000 recipes, the system can now predict how much food waste a menu will generate.
The team also explored machine learning algorithms to identify ingredients that could cause nutrient deficiencies and provided recommendations to enhance meals’ nutritional value. This feature supports personalized nutrition plans, which are incorporated into Easy Platter’s final database and user interface.
With these insights, Easy Platter reduces food waste while helping customers enjoy healthier, personalized meals—combining sustainability and wellness in every dish.
The Office of Innovation and Community Engagement (OICE) at Saint Mary’s University facilitates research partnerships between the University and companies, government departments and community organizations. OICE is the initial point of contact for faculty members and external partners wishing to collaborate. The office assists with finding suitable expertise, contract development and advising on funding opportunities.
This project highlight is from the 2025 OICE Report, which features researchers from Saint Mary's University and their external partners.