East of England Co-op tackles food waste

East of England Co-op has extended its partnership with Retail Insight for a further three years as part of its ongoing commitment to sustainability and tackling food waste

With sustainability a central pillar of the co-operative’s values, East of England Co-op has partnered with Retail Insight since 2021, leveraging its cloud-based WasteInsight solution to tackle food waste across its estate.  Powered by cognitive technology, WasteInsight puts retailers in control of food waste through data-led, actionable insights that support the entire waste journey, including forecasting accuracy, expiration management, dynamic markdowns and donations to charities.  

As part of its extended partnership, Retail Insight has integrated East of England Co-op’s electronic shelf-edge labels (ESLs) into WasteInsight to drive up labour productivity associated with produce expiration management and markdowns. 

Following a successful pilot of the functionality, East of England Co-op has now rolled out the solution in 18 stores and plans to go live in all of its ESL-equipped food stores by September of this year.

Robert Hawkins, senior project manager at East of England Co-op, said: "We are thrilled to have successfully piloted the integration between our ESLs and Retail Insight's Prompted Markdown solution.  As we roll out across our estate, we are confident that we will continue to reap the rewards of streamlined processes, and we are excited to get feedback from our store colleagues."