Over the last five years there has been significant innovation in the available strategies for retailers to keep surplus food within the human and animal food chain. These have included the use of dynamic price markdown systems, new apps such as Gander or FlashFood that advertise and accelerate the sales of these discounted products, and then apps such as TooGoodToGo that promote bargain boxes of near to expiry date items to shoppers. And when all these options are exhausted, new software such as FoodCloud has made it easier and safer for retailers to donate surplus food to local charities and food banks. However, and despite all these innovations, many retailers still find themselves with surplus food that they would then need to donate, if possible, and at a cost, to animal feed or energy conversion.

To fill this gap, and to ensure that the surplus food remains in the human food chain, Tesco formed a partnership with Olio, to design and launch an innovative new way to distribute surplus food to the local community. Click here to see a BBC television news story that explains this partnership and the innovative approach they developed.

In this session, Ben (Tesco) and Saasha (Olio) will share their journey, the key milestones, the current status and results, and the next steps in their journey plan. The group will then discuss the findings and share their approaches to the management and donation of surplus food.

This session is part of the two day working group meeting [Virtual background setting = Lyon] - the sessions are for retailers, producers and academics only. To register for this session or any of the others in this two day meeting or the rest of the year, click to register.

May 19th - Where does the budget and KPI's for food waste and markdowns sit? Store or Central?

May 19th - Store Level Forecasting & Ordering - Retailer Case Study on the introduction of Machine Learning to Sell More and Waste Less

May 19th - Understanding the True Cost of Food Waste - Introducing a new financial model to count the true cost of food waste

May 20th - Retailer Case Study - One retailers journey towards zero waste

May 20th - Smart Labels - The business case at X5 for innovative smart labels.