Employees are at the heart of the fight against food waste

Retailers, your employees are your driving force to move towards a more sustainable model!

Developing talent and skills: equipping employees with the knowledge and tools is a strategic step to contribute to waste reduction efforts. They are the witnesses of the food waste in shelves. Their commitment is key for your organization. But to embark your teams, offering them good conditions and adequate tools is essential.

Focus on the major role of employees to fight food waste in stores.

The commitment of employees and the mastering of an adequate gesture regarding the short-dated products is a centerpiece for retailers who want to reach the next level in their fight against food waste.

Indeed, employees have a central role to play to keep the level of waste down. But this necessity is faced with the multiple tasks employees already have to do in shelves, the knowledge of the workforce and the high turnover of teams, as well as the difficulty of increasing the management requirement in store operations. Currently, in many stores, they still check by hand the products that are about to expire. This task is extremely time-consuming for the teams and, let’s say it, a tedious one which finally brings recurrent errors. Some stores don’t even have time to do it every morning.

They manage, check quality and can prevent waste but they also are under pressure to ensure sales volume. Most of the decisions are indeed made and executed by employees. They are on the first line as they are often the ones to notice overstocked items, damaged products or products nearing their expiration dates. They are responsible for managing inventory levels and their vigilance on the shelves, as “quality keepers”, can help identify potential food waste before it occurs.

The employees ability depends on:

• Their knowledge
• Their experience
• Their available time
• The embedding of daily working routines
• Their level of responsibility

In stores, conscious management may choose to place the most experienced and committed employees in the more difficult departments, such as dairy or fruits and vegetables.

Store employees have direct contact with customers. Some of them even come each day to buy their daily food and thus meet the same employees day after day. This may create interactions and regular discussions about food waste, how they fight it in the shelves, where the discounted products can be found in the store and, globally, raise consciousness about this top matter.

Employees “on the tiles” clearly have a role to play in educating consumers about food waste and providing advice on how to reduce it.

They also play a central role in the daily work at the department since it requires constant supervision. That is a point of brainteaser for them to refill products that have run out, going to the storage and coming back, rearrange display units and shelves to make them look neat and tidy and be attractive all day long to customers.

Employees finally are at a crossroads, between the instructions of maximizing sales volumes while doing efforts to reduce food waste.

Let’s do not forget employees in the retail industry are also consumers!

With their own level of ecological sensitivity and their own values and principles. Short-dated products management is a matter of principle not only for customers, but also for the store teams that keep retail organizations working. Observing and participating in the food waste in stores can demotivate them and create deep frustration, disappointment and irritation. Retailers rather need to work with the employees who are the most committed and make them ambassadors.

“When you see all the stuff that used to go into the dumpster… Today we all feel good saving so many items, fighting food waste has become normal, it’s part of our routine.”
Christine, Deli employee at Carrefour Le Mans, France

To benefit from the efficiency and commitment of employees, retailers need to give them the good working conditions: information and awareness about food waste, dedicated tools and support to guarantee the adoption of an anti-waste gesture on the long-term.

But for employees to become key players in the fight against food waste, it requires three things from their management:

• Information and awareness on the impact of food waste
• The support for a long-term adoption of this anti-waste gesture in their organization and processes
• The adequate tool so they can save time

First step

Companies need to ensure that employees understand the stakes of the fight against food
waste. They need to bring the meaning but also the figures of this society issue. Transferring
their teams the adequate level of information regarding the regulations, empower their responsibility on food waste and give them the specific data on storage requirements of products when needed (for fresh products for instance) is an essential step.

Second step

Stores have to allow their teams to be more efficient and reduce their time on consuming
tasks. The manual checking of dates? It is an outdated practice, source of demotivation and error, even more in a context where the management experiences strong employee turnover. It is time for the digitalization of antiwaste. By choosing the ideal technological solution to ease and accelerate the management of short-dated products. By responding to employees’ constraints, which lack the time to do it by hand. By being able to track food waste and by analyzing data and thus implementing actions plans to readjust their order or the facing. A whole new way to manage the short-dated products, with the help of Artificial Intelligence.

Third step

Digitizing the fight against food waste also means creating a new corporate culture. While
reinventing employees routine, the management is proposing a global redefinition of the anti-waste gesture to its teams. As one of the major challenges lies in the employees’ lack of familiarity with the key gestures regarding the anti-waste processes, the obvious response is to introduce a technology that guides employees through good practices and processes in a precise order. This approach, based on the digitalization of the anti-waste gesture, represents one of the most effective and quickest solutions for a food distributor to implement.

This is a transformation for sustainable growth. Refining anti-waste gesture is about capturing value, ensuring it becomes a positive and integral part of employees routines. By fostering a culture of responsibility, retail management can embrace new and effective ways of working that tackle food waste head-on.

Reducing food waste is not only environmentally beneficial but also economically advantageous for stores. Employees who actively participate in waste reduction efforts contribute to cost savings and the gain of margin points.

This reinvented anti-waste process is finally a source of motivation and cohesion for teams, satisfied to commit themselves to a meaningful project and find a global purpose. They feel useful for the planet’s urgent need to act, they are motivated to avoid waste and offer alternatives to their low-income consumers who have lost purchasing power. In a time where we saw that the food price is the adjustment variable in their budget, employees found a new source of satisfaction in being able to help. It can also be an answer for food retailers’ challenge to retain employees and keep involved individuals in their teams, by being committed in the fight against food waste.

So granting members of staff the adequate tools to manage the fight against food waste has positive consequences “on the tiles”, making employees more ready to do it everyday but obviously contributes for the store’s global benefits.

Short-dated product management should be meaningful and rewarding for all!

Contact our experts to discuss the key role of employees to fight food waste and how this commitment is a source of motivation and the best way to make them adopt a new professional gesture.