Preventing food waste: Forecasting the number of meals for canteen kitchens

Cheffr ApS} is a Danish development company that focuses on minimizing food and resource waste in canteen kitchens. Currently, %up to one-third of the produced food ends up in the trash [reference?] up to 20\% of food served in the food service sector is wasted which has negative consequences for both the environment and the economy. To address this issue, Cheffr has developed \texttt{CheffrBook}, a digital application for booking and cancelling meals which assists kitchen managers in reducing daily food waste. The Study Group is asked to propose optimal algorithms to turn existing user data into more reliable predictions which can help kitchen managers minimise food waste at the cooking and serving stage of food delivery. The goal is to develop forecasting functionality for the \texttt{CheffrBook} application based historical information such as bookings and attendance, as well as related data like vacations, seasons, and individual diner profiles.