The innovative and sustainable startup, iThanks, was recently featured on Circular Economy Let’s Talk, where they were interviewed by Simone Martino, a journalist specializing in sustainability and circular economy.

Is there a concrete way to monitor shelf life, avoid waste, help the planet, and simultaneously benefit businesses?

The answer is yes, thanks to iThanks, the first digital assistant for supermarkets that addresses the issue of expired products on shelves by predicting expiration dates and simplifying product control and management in stores. But that’s not all—iThanks offers many other advantages. We asked the two founders, Marco Cartolano and Andrea Gasco, to tell us more.

What is iThanks and what are the benefits of using it?

iThanks is the digital assistant for supermarkets, the first of its kind, bringing the food retail sector directly to 5.0 by automating the entire product management and control process on shelves while also making the store sustainable. The benefits are numerous: firstly, the heavy work of control and management is entirely handled by our digital assistant, meaning less stress and effort for staff and, importantly, less wasted time.

Secondly, and equally important, is the real control over shelf products, something previously unimaginable. This means better control over the store and the business. Our tested Control Food Line system helps stores improve revenue by optimizing processes and reducing losses.

With real-time analytics and AI, we can map and control everything from an entire chain to a single department or even an individual product, tracking performance. In short, we enhance and optimize stores.

iThanks is also beneficial for retailers, distributors, and producers. Our innovative real-time product control system helps producers with market research and distributors optimize their orders.

Lastly, iThanks truly helps the environment! We genuinely reduce waste and can calculate precise sustainable data for each product, not just estimates. By using iThanks, stores reduce labor time and losses, cut food waste, CO2 emissions, and other greenhouse gases, decrease plastic and paper use, and save on electricity and other resources in the food chain.

Is there a particular achievement you are proud of?

There are several, but if we had to choose, it would be the economic savings combined with improved sustainability that we bring to stores. We’ve calculated that we save thousands of euros for each department and cut CO2 emissions by over 50% every month. These figures show that it’s possible to be sustainable while improving profit margins.

Where are you now and what are the next steps?

We are currently expanding rapidly and are already in ten Italian regions. More stores want to activate iThanks every month! Our next goals are to cover the remaining Italian regions and eventually expand abroad.

For some time now, we have launched our data storytelling campaign—a relatively new concept in Italy but widespread in many other countries. Through this campaign, we creatively and accessibly share our sustainability efforts and numbers. You can see some examples on our social media channels.

Additionally, we have an exciting project nearing completion that will further enhance the entire sector. But for now, we’ll leave you in suspense—we can’t reveal more just yet.