Innovative logistics of spent coffee grounds reuse: an IoT-based rolling horizon approach

Coffee is one of the most consumed beverages worldwide, driving an industry worth billions of euros annually. However, its life cycle does not end with consumption; it generates a significant amount of by-products, including spent coffee grounds (SCG), often treated as waste. If managed through innovative recovery and reuse practices, these by-products can be recycled and transformed into valuable resources, reducing environmental impact, and optimizing logistics processes. This research explores the recovery of SCG as secondary raw materials in other production chains, leveraging IoT technologies and web-based platforms for real-time monitoring and informed decision-making. The study proposes a heuristic approach that simultaneously plans coffee deliveries and SCG collections (pick-ups) and related routing for a set of coffee shops, while dynamically adapting to evolving requests through a Rolling Horizon technique. Performance results on test cases based on extensive territorial and realistic consumption data are promising, highlighting the potential of this approach for sustainable supply chain management.