AI and Software Development, Newcastle
OpenKit builds custom AI and software for North East businesses from our Durham office, with IoT, mobile, and web work across Newcastle.
Ibrahim Mizi
· 5 min read
Updated 
OpenKit is a UK AI and software development company working across Newcastle and Durham from its Durham office. It builds custom software, AI systems, IoT platforms, mobile apps, and web applications for North East businesses, and its regional work includes the KIOTI kitchen-monitoring platform and the Food Forage meal-planning app. This post explains what OpenKit builds in the North East and how the work has changed since AI moved from novelty to a genuine engineering option.
Last updated 8 July 2026.
Software development in the North East, in the AI era
When this post first went up, OpenKit was a North East software house building mobile apps, web platforms, and IoT systems. That work continues. What has changed is that AI is now a real part of most builds rather than a buzzword bolted on at the end, and OpenKit has grown into a UK AI and software consultancy that pairs the same engineering craft with AI systems that hold up in production.
For a North East business that means one team can take a problem from the first honest question, is AI even the right tool here, through to a custom build that ships. Some projects are still a straightforward mobile app or web platform. Others start with an AI audit that ranks where AI actually earns its place before anyone writes code, so the money goes where the evidence points rather than where the hype does.
What we build for Newcastle and North East businesses
- Custom AI software, from automating a slow internal process to building a system trained on your own data.
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android, designed around the people who will actually use them.
- IoT and connected systems that turn sensors and devices into data a business can act on.
- Web applications, from customer platforms to internal tools.
- Private AI deployment, for organisations whose data cannot leave their own infrastructure.
The common thread is that the build follows the problem. We would rather talk a client out of a system they do not need than sell one that looks impressive and gets abandoned.
KIOTI: IoT for commercial kitchens in Newcastle
With Upnorth Group, a Newcastle enterprise, OpenKit built KIOTI, an IoT platform for commercial kitchen management across the North East. Wireless sensors track temperatures in refrigeration, storage, and cooking areas, and the system alerts staff the moment a reading drifts out of the safe range, which keeps food safe and cuts waste.
Beyond temperature, KIOTI reports on energy and water use so operators can find where cost is leaking, tracks compliance metrics like humidity, and puts all of it on any mobile device so a busy kitchen team can act on live data from anywhere on the premises. It is a working example of turning the daily reality of a Newcastle business into software that pays for itself.
Food Forage: a meal-planning app built in Durham
In Durham, OpenKit worked with local founders to build Food Forage, a mobile app that rethinks meal planning and grocery shopping around convenience, cost, and less waste. Location-based suggestions surface nearby products and offers, which nudges users toward local shops and shorter supply chains.
The app generates shopping lists from household size, dietary preferences, and past habits so people buy what they will actually use, and it integrates with several major UK online supermarkets for one-click ordering and price comparison across stores. OpenKit also built the supporting website so the Food Forage team can update content without touching code.
A North East base, a national practice
OpenKit runs from a Durham office that serves Newcastle and the wider North East, alongside a second office in Cambridge. Being based in the region means face-to-face conversations are easy and the team understands the local market, while the wider consultancy brings the AI engineering depth that used to mean looking to London.
Start with an audit
Most engagements start with an AI Audit and Transformation, a fixed-scope, fixed-fee piece of work that finds where AI earns its place in your business and where it does not, then puts the first of it into service. You leave with a written report and a prioritised 12 month roadmap.
Does OpenKit build software for businesses in Newcastle and the North East?
Yes. OpenKit works with businesses across Newcastle, Durham, and the wider North East from its Durham office, building custom software, AI systems, IoT platforms, mobile apps, and web applications. Recent North East work includes the KIOTI kitchen monitoring platform and the Food Forage meal-planning app.
What does OpenKit do now beyond traditional software development?
OpenKit is a UK AI and software consultancy. Alongside mobile, web, and IoT builds, it runs AI audits that rank where AI actually helps a business, builds bespoke AI systems, and deploys private AI where data cannot leave a company's own infrastructure. The software craft is the same; the range of what it can build has widened.
Where is OpenKit's North East office?
OpenKit works out of Durham, in Belmont Business Park, which serves clients across Newcastle and the North East. It also runs an office in Cambridge. Face-to-face meetings across the North East are straightforward from the Durham base.
Take the question to an audit.
If this raised a question about your own operation, the AI Audit and Transformation is where we answer it. The scope and the fee are both fixed and agreed before we start, and what you take away is a written report your board can read in one sitting alongside a prioritised 12 month roadmap. The first build happens inside the same three to four weeks, so you leave with working software, not a slide deck.
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