Smartway celebrates its 100th Carrefour franchisee committed to reducing food waste

Each week for the past year, Smartway has been attracting new Carrefour franchisees willing to go further in their fight against food waste. The Nantes-based start-up’s unique solutions, based on artificial intelligence, help store staff detect products approaching their expiration date and group them together, at reduced prices, in Zero Waste sections. So far, more than 830,000 products across the network have been saved from landfill. A great way to reduce food waste while helping protect consumers from cost-of-living pressures. In Rennes, the Carrefour City Rennes Rance store is the 100th store to join the movement. Let’s find out more about a solution that is equally beneficial for employees, consumers and the planet.

An 80% reduction in food waste thanks to AI

Today, store staff have to manually check for products approaching their expiration date, decide the best way to repurpose them, apply the right discount rate and print the discount labels. These processes are time-consuming and likely to result in errors. 

Strongly committed to tackling food waste, Carrefour aims to reduce by 50 % the volume of food it wastes by 2025 compared to 2016. In Rennes, the Carrefour City franchisee is the 100th store to adopt Smartway’s artificial intelligence-based solutions. Smartway, who introduced Zero-Waste sections, has created the Food Waste Management System (FWMS), a suite of digital tools on a platform equipped with a unique Artificial Intelligence system. In concrete terms, these innovative solutions help store staff detect products approaching their expiration date and offer the right discount rate.

This partnership with Smartway is a new milestone for our store. We felt this was the right choice because we were faced with a high percentage of food waste, which ended up going straight to the bin. This solution not only helps us to reduce waste, it also allows us to offer discounted products, which is obviously much appreciated by our customers, especially students, in this period of inflation.
Louise and Ronan Floch’lay, Store Manager

An all-in-one solution to guarantee that there are no expired items on the shelf

Compared to any other existing tool, this partnership plays the card of optimisation: it is an intelligent solution that not only minimises food waste, but also considerably reduces processing time for the staff, while significantly increasing the store’s margin. In just a few simple steps, the operator can quickly identify short-dated products and print new labels with customised discount rates. This reduces food waste by as much as 80%.

Saving time for staff and protecting consumers from cost-of-living pressures

It is a win-win situation. Stores reduce their food waste and increase their margin. Employees receive guidance on handling soon-to-expire products, cutting down the time spent on these tasks by 75%. Consumers are able to buy more discounted products.

Carrefour City Rennes Rance
Zero Waste zone in the Carrefour City Rennes Rance
A student buying product from Zero Waste Zone

Press contacts:

Smartway: Presse & Cie – Laetitia Munoz – +33 (0)6 20 49 90 39 – lmunoz@presse-cie.com

About Smartway

A food outlet throws away as much as it earns! Though more and more consumers are in need, tackling this food waste ought to be a priority: stores can solve it right now, while increasing their profitability.
As an engaged company since 2012, founders of “0 waste” corners, Smartway created the first Food Waste Management System to optimize the end of food products’ lifecycle.
Based on a unique artificial intelligence, Smartway solutions guide teams in store to detect products soon-to-expire and decide the best way to save them : fast and relevant discount or eased donation to charities.

“Working daily to reduce waste together”

smartway.ai