OPINION: Food retailers have long been pioneers of innovation, from streamlining operations with automation and embracing ‘grab and go’ models to rapidly adopting digital solutions during the pandemic. Now, their focus has shifted towards an equally pressing challenge: food waste.
With the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal targeting a 50% reduction in food waste by 2030, retailers find themselves uniquely positioned to drive change. As the last link in the food supply chain, they have both the influence and the responsibility to make a meaningful impact.
Through deliberate and targeted innovation, today’s digital solutions can provide food retailers with powerful tools to monitor and manage critical machines, such as refrigeration, and optimise and maintain conditions to ensure both product safety and quality. Internet of Things (IoT) technology and data-driven insights enable supermarkets to extend shelf life, protect food quality and safety, and enhance machine performance at scale. By revolutionising their operations, retailers can dramatically cut food waste, driving not just sustainability, but profitability.
A closer look at the food waste problem
To understand the critical role that supermarkets can play in reducing food waste, the complex global causes and far-reaching impacts of this challenge must be acknowledged.
Distribution and accessibility challenges are significant contributors to food inequality and insecurity. More than enough food is produced to feed the global population of 8 billion people, but despite that, nearly 924 million people face severe food insecurity. This equates to a staggering 11.7% of the global population. Addressing these inequalities requires sweeping changes across the global supply chain from policy, farming, transportation, storage, and the implementation and use of technology.
There are also challenges at a consumer level. The food supply chain has become predicated on waste due in part to a sizable portion of fresh produce discarded simply for not meeting consumer expectations of appearance. Forward-thinking companies, like Wonky Veg Boxes, are already challenging and changing standards by reshaping and educating consumers, helping to limit food waste both at a supermarket and a household level.
While food retailers can’t alter deep-rooted and complex political, social, and consumer challenges, they do hold significant power in revolutionising food waste by leveraging their central role in the food supply chain and their direct connection with consumers. As a key link between producers and shoppers, retailers can influence supply chain operations through demand forecasting, purchasing practices, and storage standards, while simultaneously help to shape consumer behaviour through education, promotions, and product offerings. By embracing these opportunities alongside innovative technologies, retailers can minimise spoilage, optimise inventory for peak freshness, and extend product shelf life, creating a more efficient, sustainable food system.
The need for safety and the strive for quality
At the heart of retailers’ food waste challenges is the dual need for food safety and the strive for product quality. Meeting these requirements is critical to protect consumers, preserve the integrity of food products and reduce unnecessary loss. To achieve this, accurate control and continuous monitoring of refrigeration systems is a necessity.
This is where digital technology steps in. By incorporating an IoT software layer to existing cooling systems, smarter and more efficient operations can be unlocked. These cutting-edge solutions provide real-time insights into machine health, performance, setup, and even the specific contents of each unit when connected to merchandising systems. Millions of data points are continuously collected and analysed, offering retailers unparalleled visibility and control over their operations, ensuring refrigeration systems are not only set up correctly, but are consistently operating optimally to enhance product quality and protect safety.
If an anomaly is detected by the software – such as unwanted temperature fluctuations – the solution can enact immediate corrective responses to the machine. This intervention could involve automatically alerting a refrigeration engineer with prioritised fault details, or dynamically reconfiguring machine settings based on the actual produce inside each unit. These targeted interventions not only prevent spoilage, but also extend shelf life and reduce overall waste, ensuring both safety and quality remain uncompromised.
Optimum machine performance and health
Building on the need for precise temperature management, digital solutions also ensure optimum machine performance and health – critical factors in the fight against food waste.
Real-time monitoring and management of machine data allows for the early detection and automatic intervention of identified faults and anomalies. This prevents potential asset inefficiencies and breakdowns before they escalate and cause product spoilage. By adopting a proactive and preventative approach to maintenance, such solutions can automatically implement repairs or dispatch engineers as needed.
This approach minimises the risk of food spoilage from equipment failure while simultaneously reducing excessive energy consumption, a common consequence of underperforming machinery. Furthermore, by ensuring equipment runs at peak efficiency, retailers can maintain consistent product availability for customers.
A tight-margined industry
For food retailers operating in a notoriously low-margin industry, leveraging IoT technology offers the most cost-efficient way to reduce waste and improve sustainability.
Traditionally, implementing new technological solutions would often require significant investment to replace existing machinery and deploy new systems – an expense many retailers struggled to meet or justify. However, innovative controls-agnostic solutions provide a smarter alternative. They enable IoT software to seamlessly integrate and collect data from a diverse range of existing legacy and modern equipment, irrespective of manufacturer or age. This ‘plug and play’ approach eliminates the need for retailers to invest in costly new hardware upgrades, dramatically lowering the barriers to adopt IoT solutions that can drive sustainable food waste initiatives. By empowering supermarkets to engage with impactful solutions, they can achieve their waste reduction goals without compromising operational budgets.
Harnessing data-driven solutions to combat food waste in retail
The global issue of food waste is complex and multifaceted. The systemic changes required to the supply chain and consumer habits cannot be achieved overnight. However, food retailers hold a unique position to drive meaningful progress today. By embracing digital innovation and leveraging data-driven solutions, they can sustain optimal conditions for produce, ensuring both quality and safety while minimising waste.
With controls-agnostic IoT technologies now affordable and readily available, retailers have an unprecedented opportunity to make a tangible impact. By adopting these solutions, they can significantly reduce food waste in stores, improve operational efficiency, and help bring the world closer to the ambitious goal of halving food waste by 2030.
If you’d like to learn more about food waste, you can purchase tickets for our Food Waste Conference here, which is taking place on 6th March 2025 in London. Visit the link for further information on the agenda.
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