Carrefour Hyper Le Mans • France
How did Carrefour Le Mans achieve a 87% resale rate on its labelled products ?
Store surface area : 10 000 m2
Solutions : Smartdetection • Smartdecision • Smartdiscount
The Carrefour Le Mans store, located in the Pays de la Loire region, is a 10,000 m2 hypermarket. On 1 November 2021, Carrefour Hyper Le Mans underwent major changes in its management. The Carrefour group sold the store under a management lease, and Simon Fouchet, Franchise Director, took over the reins of the store.
As part of the overall transformation of the store, the new manager wanted to do more to reduce food waste by implementing the Smartway solution.
Minimise
revenue loss from food shrinkage
Optimize
costs for better profits
Automate
store processes to save time
No expire items
on the shelves
Convey
an eco-responsible image
Support
change management
A strong commitment against food waste at all levels
A bold new direction means bold new goals! By setting up an anti-waste solution with Smartway, Simon Fouchet had multiple goals in mind, notably to automate the unsold goods management process in order to save time and minimise revenue loss from food shrinkage. Carrefour Le Mans partnered with Smartway above all to gain support towards achieving zero waste.
In addition to working with Smartway, the store is developing multiple partnerships to donate or recycle its unsold food. Carrefour Le Mans hypermarket is committed to reducing food waste through a number of channels. These include donating meat to gamekeepers, donating food to Restos du Coeur and other local food banks, donating fruit to be used to make jam or compost, and selling short-dated food boxes!
This global commitment to reducing food waste is reflected in the words of the Director; “my ultimate goal is for the store’s garbage bins to be completely empty”.
Easy to use and effective anti-waste solutions
Before implementing the Food Waste Management System solutions in January 2022, the Carrefour hypermarket in Le Mans was using Carrefour’s internal solution to deal with its unsold goods. The store staff removed unsold items from the shelves by hand and labelled them with fixed discounts of 30% or 50%. With this method, the store had no clear data on the unsold products on the shelves and could not make adjustments to its orders, which led to many expired items.
Our experts provided the best solution to the store, based on its bold targets, namely Smartdetection, the automated solution for detecting short-dated products. Every morning, aisle by aisle, the staff receive alerts about the products whose expiration dates need to be checked. From the first month of use, we guarantee that there will be no expired products on the shelves, and the staff will save time!
Products detected by Smartdetection are then handled using our smart labelling solution. Unsold products are labelled with variable discounts automatically calculated by our artificial intelligence based on various parameters, including resale, quantity of products, etc. Our system directs the product to the most suitable recycling channel: donation or labelling.
Smartway provided the store with shrinkage tracking dashboards to improve efficiency. We also provided comprehensive training, specifically tailored ongoing support and proactive and personalized customer service. And the store’s performance is proof that our partnership is a success: in just 4 months, the store saw a 30% decrease in its waste!
“In addition to the technological performance provided by Smartway, I am particularly satisfied with the ongoing support and their strong customer focus.”
Simon Fouchet, Director of the Carrefour Le Mans hypermarket
The store reduced its waste by 30% in only 4 months!
87% resale of labelled short date products
200,000 food products have been saved in one year!
A global project for outstanding results
Thanks to the staff’s commitment to using the Smartway solutions, the store has achieved outstanding results in such a short time: 55% of the unsold products are repurposed (and this figure is increasing), and the net food waste (the actual percentage of products that end up in the trash) is less than 0.9%!
Carrefour Le Mans can now offer its customers discounted prices on short-dated products that are still as good as ever! A wide variety of items are available, including fruit and vegetable boxes, meats and deli items, dry goods, baby products, flowers and much more. In just 4 months, over 61.5 tons of food was diverted from landfills! After one year of use, more than 200,000 food products have been saved! An amazing result!
“Smartway is part of a global project that ticks all the boxes! Business performance, ecological and social targets, people-centred approach. This project promotes team cohesion and dedication.”
Simon Fouchet, Director of the Carrefour Le Mans hypermarket
Committed staff, proud of throwing away less
Beyond economic or operational performance, the success of our partnership lies in our staff’s commitment to reducing waste.
To achieve this, the store management is educating staff about the importance of dealing with unsold goods and reducing waste, because only by getting the staff to embrace the project can they generate the most impactful results. Smartway solutions make all the processes easier, to prevent as many items as possible from ending up in landfills.
And the results are visible in terms of employee engagement: the employees are proud of throwing away less and happy to participate in the global fight to reduce food waste. In return, our teams are proud to fulfil Smartway’s mission to enhance the store’s environmental commitment through this important partnership.
“When you see all the stuff that used to go into the dumpster… Today we all feel good about saving so many items, [fighting food waste] has become normal, it’s part of our routine!”
Christelle
Deli Employee
“The teams are on board, they’re engaged, they suggest new things! So the anti-waste and financial results are simply the consequence of this increased awareness!”
Simon Fouchet
Director of the Carrefour Le Mans hypermarket
“We have a lot of opportunities for repurposing or recycling, we’re really aiming to throw nothing away and that’s really great!
Sandrine
Fresh Food Employee
“Anti-waste tools are important, but the human element, relationships and collaboration among staff are essential.”
Simon Fouchet
Director of the Carrefour Le Mans hypermarket