Maxima Latvija has teamed up with Latvijas Zaļais Punkts (Green Point Latvia), a group aimed at empowering businesses to address environmental issues, on a digital solution that it says will help identify products nearing their expiration date.
Following a pilot rollout, the system was rolled out to a new Maxima XXX store in the Riga Plaza centre in November, and plans are underway to continue the rollout to further stores in the coming months.
The system replaces the manual control of expiration dates with a digital, tablet-based system, displaying a list of products that require extra promotion on a daily basis. Using this system, employees are able to reposition said products quickly and efficiently, limiting food waste and promoting responsible consumption.
Key Priority
"As one of the leading retail chains in the Baltics, we see environmental concerns as our priority," said Maxima Latvija Board Member Jānis Vanags.
"Therefore, this intelligent solution for controlling product expiration date is option to reduce food waste in retail even more. After analysing the results of the project, we will review plan to introduce this system to more stores."
Elsewhere, the director of Latvijas Zaļais Punkts, Kaspars Zakulis, described the new system as a "smart, modern solution to reducing the amount of products on supermarket shelves that are thrown away when they expire".
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Stephen Wynne-Jones. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
