Smart online technologies can play a major role in waste reduction in shoppers’ homes, argues Ocado Solutions’ chief executive

Food-waste

Of the 9.5 million tonnes of food waste generated, 6.6 million is generated by waste at home 

Most of us like to think we’re conscious enough not to waste food, both as consumers and as participants in the industry. 

But as we enter the worst cost-of-living crisis in decades, we must face the fact that collectively we have struggled to address the challenge of waste for far too long. 

I’m not singling out the grocery industry as the main culprit here – far from it. By any calculation, the supermarket industry is a comparatively small contributor to overall waste in the value chain.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t do more – much more – as an industry to go further.

In the UK, the latest figures from the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) suggest that of the 9.5 million tonnes of food waste generated, 0.3 million comes from the retail sector. Waste at home contributed the lion’s share of 6.6 million of the total. 

“Food production accounts for a staggering 26% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, so whatever is wasted is also needlessly contributing to global warming”

Scary as it is on its own, the consequence of food waste cuts a lot of different ways. According to the University of Oxford and Our World in Data, food production accounts for a staggering 26% of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, so whatever is wasted is also needlessly contributing to global warming.

According to the European Food Information Council, if food waste was a country it would be the third-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions after China and the US. 

But, beyond that, it’s particularly hard to digest against the backdrop of persistent food insecurity in the UK – a reality for more than 15% of households, according to The Food Foundation. 

As we move into the autumn of 2022, many trends that economists took for granted are unravelling.

Geopolitics are more turbulent, the labour market is tight and energy prices are putting pressure on homes and businesses across the country. These factors are contributing to one of the biggest squeezes on household budgets in decades.

So what can be done to reduce food waste now? 

Given the data, the biggest prize will be in helping shoppers to avoid waste. An increasing number of shoppers are seeing online as a smart way to do that because it allows them to plan their shop with care. 

The last time that inflation stood where it is today, the internet was barely a glint in the eye of Sir Tim Berners-Lee. The possibility of online grocery was unfathomable and the options it would create for shoppers would never have been considered.

Forty years on and consumers have access to a wider toolkit for planning their weekly shop and household meals. 

While online has a headstart in helping consumers avoid excessive shopping baskets by showing a running total on spend, this can also be achieved in store as retailers deploy mobile scan-and-go tools. 

“Waste in grocery continues to run at 2.5% to 3% of sales, but AI is now allowing us to make supply chain forecasting a quantum more accurate”

Smart online technologies can also play a major role in waste reduction in shoppers’ homes. Ocado has for many years accurately tracked the best-before dates of every product it sells, allowing it to provide customers with receipts indicating which products will be best consumed by which date – a saviour for those like me who would otherwise forget those items that ended up at the back of the fridge shelf.

There also continue to be great opportunities to reduce waste in grocery supply chains. Waste in grocery continues to run at 2.5% to 3% of sales, but AI is now allowing us to make supply chain forecasting a quantum more accurate. 

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Online grocery shopping allows shoppers to plan their weekly shop ahead of time

Online ordering data, including for multichannel retailers, can provide a forward-looking data point of what consumers are going to be buying in the coming days, allowing for more accurate ordering for stores. 

At Ocado Retail and within our technology teams, we have already made big inroads into the challenge, achieving waste as a percentage of sales as low as 0.4%. 

Full supply chain visibility also means that what little food we do have in surplus is able to go to our food bank and community partners with maximum freshness.

So, for instance, if we get fresh milk into our sites with 10 days of shelf life, once it’s down to five days we give it to a food bank. As a result, just 0.038% of items go to landfill. 

For grocers, the onus has never been greater to both invest in our own waste reduction and leverage our key role in the supply chain to drive improvements both upstream and downstream of our operations. 

This is not down to a ‘silver bullet’ solution, but sustained investment and innovation on challenges throughout the cold chain, from supply chain forecasting to AI-optimised delivery routing.

Ultimately, the overwhelming majority of people are thinking more carefully about their weekly grocery shop and how to minimise waste. It’s up to us to help them with that challenge and to strive to do a better job ourselves.

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