East of England Co-op cuts waste with AI

East of England Co-op has moved closer to its goal of eliminating edible food waste by 2030 by utilising AI

Last year, Retail Insight’s AI-powered markdown solution helped the cooperative prevent 1.8million meals from entering landfill.

East of England Co-op worked with Retail Insight to deploy Retail Insight's expiry date management feature - Prompted Markdowns.

Prompted Markdowns automates the identification of products nearing expiry, alerting staff members to focus only on products where action is needed.  Streamlining the markdown process and stock exit procedures, the solution eliminates the need for time-consuming manual checks, improving the in-store teams’ productivity – a key area East of England Co-op sought to address. 

The implementation of Prompted Markdowns also aligned with the retailer’s goals to simplify their reduced to clear (RTC) processes, reduce operational costs, and reduce food waste. 

Sam Winter, chief retail officer at East of England Co-op, added: "We want to use technology to improve the lives of our colleagues, our customers, our members and the community.  Retail Insight’s WasteInsight solution is a great example of exactly how we can do that.  We listened to feedback and have reduced manual effort and frustration for colleagues in-store, ensuring we can give great deals on RTC products to our customers, and importantly put the society on a trajectory to meet our target to reduce food waste to 0% by 2030.”