Case Study 2

Less Waste - More Availability

The challenge

Our comprehensive range of fresh foods - from tasty sandwiches to healthy vegetables and convenient ready meals - is increasingly popular with our customers, representing a growing percentage of our food sales.

But it's difficult to predict day-to-day demand for these kinds of products, most of which have a naturally short shelf life. This often leads to a lot of wasted products. More importantly for our customers, it can lead to gaps on our shelves too.

An Operations Development Manager made it their job to reduce the Tesco waste bill and ensure our shelves are better stocked.

Our approach and results

To identify and target the most wasteful lines, first the Operations Development team analysed waste levels for a wide range of products.

Second, they analysed the time taken from ordering the most wasteful products to their arrival in-store on the shelf. This gave them the opportunity to reduce waste by helping to shorten this period. Working closely with Tesco Commercial, they are now changing ordering times from suppliers, product group by product group.

The project may be ongoing, but early results show fewer gaps are appearing on our shelves. And we're making good savings for the business by reducing the overall amount of food we waste.