REDUCING FOOD WASTE: THE SMART SUPPLY CHAIN

Last year, Tesco and WRAP UK reported that a third of the food produced in the UK goes to waste. Approximately half of this waste occurs in the home, and the other half goes to waste within the supply chain – before it ever reaches the store.

Source: WRAP UK / Tesco UK food waste report

Recent news coverage of rising food prices has highlighted waste as a prime culprit. It costs upwards of £12.5bn a year (as well as being bad for the environment).

Tesco have been leading the war on waste with numerous initiatives. Most focus on reducing waste by repurposing food once in store – for example, donating to food banks or trying to preserve food for longer.

But there are few initiatives to reduce waste further up the supply chain. The challenging prediction of supply and demand week-to-week mean that over-production, poor storage and over-distribution cause 6.5 million tonnes of waste each year.

What if there was a better way to predict and therefore manage supply and demand? Our hypothesis is simple: use digital data to create a responsive supply chain.

Supermarkets already sit on top of a huge amount of shopper purchase data. By plugging this data into the supply chain as it is generated, each stage of the chain can react to fluctuations in demand quickly and pro-actively.

This smart supply chain has a number of benefits:

• Actively tackles food waste by avoiding the creation of surplus.
• A cheaper long-term alternative to food repurposing and preservation.
• Better for the environment and food producers.

Currently, the supply chain is connected by many weak links. Using data to strengthen these links – thereby creating a ‘single-commodities view’ – could dramatically reduce food waste in the future.