Paul-Adrien Menez is a French entrepreneur and impact-driven leader, best known as the co-founder of Smartway, the pioneering scale-up dedicated to fighting food waste at scale. He has devoted his career to rethinking the way supermarkets and food distributors handle unsold products, combining innovation, sustainability, and profitability.
From an early stage in his career, Paul-Adrien was struck by the paradox of modern food systems: on the one hand, millions of tons of perfectly edible food are wasted every year; on the other, hundreds of millions of people face hunger daily. This tension fueled his determination to build solutions that would have a concrete impact on both retailers’ bottom lines and the planet.
In 2012, Paul-Adrien co-founded Smartway with the ambition of transforming food waste management across the retail industry. Starting with small-scale pilots in French supermarkets, he and his team developed a unique suite of technologies designed to identify, value, and redistribute unsold products before they turn into waste. Over time, Smartway grew into a global reference in food waste management, now operating across four continents and in more than a dozen countries.
At the heart of Smartway’s innovation lies its Food Waste Management System (FWMS), a comprehensive platform that automatically detects products approaching their expiration dates and guides in-store teams on the best way to handle them. Through modules like SmartDetection and SmartDiscount, retailers can either remarket these products with dynamic discounts or redirect them to donation partners. This solution reduces waste, increases margins, and supports social organizations, creating a genuine triple win: for businesses, communities, and the environment.
In recognition of his pioneering work, Paul-Adrien was named one of the MIT Innovators Under 35 Europe by the MIT Technology Review. Selected among more than 1,000 candidates, this award highlighted not only his vision and innovation but also the tangible impact of Smartway’s AI-driven technologies on the retail industry
Under Paul-Adrien’s leadership, Smartway has become a trusted partner of global retail giants over four continents, proving that large-scale change is possible when sustainability and operational excellence go hand in hand. The company has saved hundreds of millions of products from being thrown away, the equivalent of thousands of tons of CO₂ emissions avoided.
More recently, Paul-Adrien has spearheaded the launch of Smartway’s second major product line, the Fresh Operating System (FOS). This AI-powered platform focuses specifically on the fresh produce category—one of the most challenging areas in supermarkets when it comes to waste. By optimizing ordering and replenishment, the FOS helps retailers strike the right balance between availability and waste reduction, tackling one of the last frontiers of food waste.
Beyond his role as an entrepreneur, Paul-Adrien is a frequent speaker at international conferences, where he advocates for pragmatic, tech-enabled solutions to the climate and food crises. He has also been recognized in numerous innovation and sustainability awards, highlighting his dual commitment to building a profitable company and driving systemic change.
Today, Paul-Adrien continues to expand Smartway’s global footprint, guided by a clear vision: a world where no edible product is ever wasted. His journey exemplifies the power of entrepreneurship for good—proving that addressing some of humanity’s most pressing challenges can also create strong business value.
