Scotmid Cooperative significantly reduces waste sent to landfill with Retail Insight's WasteInsight solution

About the client

Scotmid is the largest independent co-operative in Scotland, with around 280 retail outlets employing approximately 4,000 people in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Northern England. The main trading businesses include Food, Semichem, Funeral and Property.

Takeaways

Challenges and goals

Scotmid Food is dedicated to reducing its carbon footprint and the amount of waste that goes to landfill. To work towards achieving zero waste to landfill, the business sought out a partner with the capabilities to increase Scotmid's volume of sell-through while reducing its waste footprint.   

Partnership and solution

While Scotmid Food already had sound waste and markdown processes, they recognized the benefits Retail Insight could provide them through our WasteInsight solution. The cognitive technology behind it uses a variety of factors to identify the optimal price for each product in every store, increasing sell-through performance and reducing waste. 

In 2022, Scotmid Food and the customer success team from Retail Insight worked together to ensure that the new markdown process that WasteInsight provided in-store ran smoothly to reduce food waste. A new compliance report has also been introduced to help area managers target specific areas of opportunities across their markdown windows. We see a clear correlation between high compliance and performance. 

"We strive to constantly improve performance and ensure that Scotmid Food is receiving the best possible service", says Jessica Westwell, Client Manager. "Our determined pursuit of innovation means, for example, we make analytical changes to target specific stores and product combinations, or make enhancements to the machine learning capabilities of the platform to further increase automation and accuracy."

Results

Combining our WasteInsight algorithm and enhanced analytics and data allowed us to improve Scotmid's existing processes. Since our engagement, waste Recovery has been enhanced by 1.55%, and product Sell Through has increased by 1.83% year on year. Together, we have also saved 42.7 tonnes of food waste. The Co2 agricultural benefit is 105.1 tonnes, and over 37 tonnes saved in Co2 landfill benefit. From a process perspective, our innovative Waste Trim report is currently being used by Scotmid Food to support upstream replenishment and ranging decisions. 

Our dynamic markdown systems, powered by machine learning, are currently in place across all stores to drive performance forward. In an unstable socio-economic climate, solutions like ours are crucial to ensuring that we continue to deliver against Scotmid Food's sustainability goals.  

"The innovative and dynamic waste management solutions that Retail Insight offers addressed our business needs perfectly," said Daniel Macnamara, Head of Category, at ScotMid Co-Operative. "From our pilot through to the roll-out across the whole estate, we have seen continuous improvements that reduce the volume of food waste, improve store operations, and positively impact our bottom line." 

He added, "We look forward to a continued relationship with Retail Insight. Their team has helped us resolve some of our most pressing issues, and the dynamic food waste markdown solution has freed considerable resources to allow us to focus on delivering the best in-store experience for our customers."

Summary