In the three and a half years since launching Green Retail World, I’ve covered loads on tech to reduce food waste.
It’s an area of heightened focus as food and drink retailers look to reduce their environmental footprint and become better global citizens.
And no wonder. Around one-third of all food produced is either lost or wasted each year (much of it before it even reaches the shops, to be fair), according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Food waste is estimated by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to contribute 8-10% of total man-made greenhouse gas emissions.
Based on the IPCC data, if food waste were a country, it would be the world’s third largest emitter after China and the US. There is no surprise, then, that one of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals is to halve global food waste and reduce food losses in production and supply by 2030.
While much of the focus here needs to be placed on supporting developing countries in the food production and distribution space, there’s so much technology out there that is helping both consumers and retailers tackle food waste at the latter end of the supply chain.
Aldi, Morrisons, and Costa are among the businesses using Too Good To Go (TGTG) to help prevent soon-to-be-out-of-date produce ending up in landfill. Instead, by aligning with the food waste prevention app, they are helping potentially surplus food go to a good home while optimising revenue from items that would otherwise end up in the bin.
Tesco and others are using Olio to redirect would-be food waste to communities who need it. There are plenty of other examples of retailers working with apps to get on top of this issue – and I covered it in detail via a freelance piece for Computer Weekly.
Despite all the new forms of tech appearing and attitudes among businesses and consumers towards short-dated items changing for the better, food waste progress is no easy task. In February, Tesco had to slash its food waste reduction figures recorded over recent years after it emerged an unnamed partner had been distributing food waste for energy usage rather than animal feed – a breach of the contract and a revelation that cancelled out some of the retailer’s planet positive action.
All rather embarrassing for Tesco, but fair play to the business for owning the situation and being transparent about it. Whereas the grocer had said it had managed to cut food waste by 45% between the 2016-17 financial year and 2023, the revised figure stands at 18%.
You can read The Grocer’s in-depth piece for more information on this intriguing story.
Relex Live London
All of this leads me on to last week.
I was privileged to host the afternoon plenary at Relex Live London on 6 March, which got me thinking more about food waste and how retailers’ drive towards more efficient operating models is naturally helping them with the food waste challenge.
Although the positive benefit of the waste situation as it currently stands is those people in most need are getting access to free or low-cost food that they otherwise might not be able to through the likes of Olio and TGTG, surely it makes sense to focus on prevention rather than cure with food waste.
Relex Solutions is a Finland-based tech company but with retail clients all around the world. Its technology is built to help retailers with demand forecasting, planning and merchandising, and general supply chain management.
Representatives from Marks & Spencer and Bunzl were recognised during the day as Relex Users of the Year. The event was a real celebration of retail businesses investing in tech to enhance their performance – essentially using Relex’s solutions to be more efficient and less wasteful.
As I chaired the conference, I introduced speakers from the likes of Waitrose & Partners and Valeo Foods Ireland, which use Relex’s technology to help them run different elements of their supply chain as efficiently as possible and with organisation-wide visibility. As a result of using the tech, these businesses can enhance their supply chain planning in multiple ways.
It was clear that innovation in this space is all part of helping solve the food waste challenge at retail store and distribution level.
New tech for fresh product management
It was exciting to hear about new technology coming to market – much of it artificial intelligence-enabled – that is built to empower store personnel, improve store efficiency, and maximise sales and profitability.
Relex Mobile Pro is one such solution and has been built to simplify the stock and fresh item replenishment process. New this year, the tech helps retailers consolidate their many in-store tools and processes, while giving staff working in shops an easy and accurate store ordering and tasking offering.
In short, it helps retailers maximise sales and profitability while minimising waste. The idea is to help retailers use data science to ensure the right products are where they need to be, every time – the stock optimisation element of the tool ensures products are stocked correctly, which theoretically should reduce spoilage and out-of-stocks.
There are several other tech players in the market that provide tools for similar purposes. Earlier this month, I heard Scotmid Co-op, Scotland’s largest independent cooperative, had extended its partnership with Retail Insight, which helps the retailer reduce food waste and enhance operational efficiencies in its stores. We’ll no doubt cover other tech providers helping with these issues on these pages as the year rolls on.
In fact, it is tech like this that is going to be crucial to retailers in the coming years as more focus is placed on their supply chain practices and progress towards preventing waste. Customers and legislators will be demanding it.
In 2023, Relex added 73 new customers, including A.F. Blakemore & Son in the UK, OXXO in Mexico, PriceSmart in central and South America, and 7-Eleven Australia, showing the solutions that it provides are sought the world over.
As margins continue to be squeezed throughout the industry, the business case for using this type of tech is already there – not only does it make absolute common and environmental sense to reduce waste, but it can save businesses money too. Increasingly, it seems, retailers are finding sustainability-focused strategies are also some of the most cost-effective ones.
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Ben Sillitoe, editor, Green Retail World (@bsillitoe)
[Image credit: Green Retail World]
