Would you buy food that is expired or almost expired? Probably not. After the concept of expiration date became prevalent, people, especially when buying in supermarkets, have a tendency to avoid those soon-to-expire food. This act, however, leads inevitably to a huge amount of leftover food in supermarkets.
So how much is the amount of food left unsold in supermarkets. For example, in France, there’s annually 0.78m tonnes of food being thrown away by shops. The food waste in Tesco, the British supermarket, for 2018/19 was 44,297 tonnes.
To tackle this problem, the general approach is to work with charities and donate the food to local food banks. But from a management perspective, donating creates the supermarket with no profits aside from establishing a more positive cooperation image. These few years, big retail brands started looking for creative ways to solve the leftover problem.
In the Netherlands, for instance, there is a restaurant called In Stock that works with Albert Heijn to process various unsold blemished fruits and vegetables into dishes so that a greater profit can be generated. Internet, at the same time, also offers the big retailers a solution: a platform on which they can sell all the soon-to-expire food. The Danish application, Too Good To Go serves as a perfect example. Launched in 2016, the application is now working with more than 4000 restaurants and supermarkets in 13 European countries.
But the most effective method for supermarkets would not be trying to figure out what to do with all the leftover, but trying to create a smarter inventory system that prevents such a large quantity of wastes. An inventory system that ideally can estimate the detailed sales performance in each brand. In order to achieve this, supermarkets need not only a powerful and advanced management system, but also detailed information about their customers and customers’ purchasing history, which might or might not be a challenge to them.
Sources:
The Guardian. French law forbids food waste by supermarkets. Derived from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/feb/04/french-law-forbids-food-waste-by-supermarkets
Kor Y. (2017). How Large Food Retailers Can Help Solve the Food Waste Crisis. Derived from: https://hbr.org/2017/12/how-large-food-retailers-can-help-solve-the-food-waste-crisis
Calderbank M. (2017). Ever wondered what happens to all that unsold food at your favourite supermarket. Derived From: https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/whats-on/shopping/ever-wondered-what-happens-unsold-810208
Loritz M. (2019). Copenhagen-based app Too Good To Go raises a further €6 million to eliminate food waste. Derived From: https://www.eu-startups.com/2019/02/copenhagen-based-app-too-good-to-go-raises-a-further-e6-million-to-eliminate-food-waste/
Hi Ge,
Very interesting blog entry and an important topic to shed light on times of global climate change. The World Economic Forum reports that approximately one-third of food in the world is never consumed, which is causing an economic loss of $ 940 billion for the global economy. What’s more, there are over 800 million people fighting starvation and the decomposing of food waste is a significant contributor to global warming. Hence, it is not just the food industry that needs to reconsider business models, but also consumers need to change their behaviour. Fortunately, entrepreneurs around the world have recognized the food waste crisis and are acting to change the way groceries are sold and bought. ( https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/07/we-ve-woken-up-to-plastic-waste-is-food-waste-next )
As you mentioned in your blog, an intelligent inventory system is one way to reduce waste. “Wasteless” is an Isreali tech firm which uses AI to identify products which are about to expire and automatically discounts them in the shelf.
Under the following link, you will find 5 other inspiring ventures that are reducing food waste. (https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/ways-the-food-business-eats-into-waste)
Hey Julia, thanks for replying. I checked the links you attached, I really like the idea of WASTELESS. It must be really useful if it can be commercialized.