SPAR fights food waste through AI and data

The retailer has partnered with Whywaste to use its digital solutions to reduce food waste in stores across the globe.

Spar has announced an international partnership with food tech company Whywaste to support their food waste reduction strategy at retail. Each country's organisations will be able to use the company’s digital solutions in their day-to-day operations to reduce food waste in stores.

Whywaste provides a portfolio of solutions that addresses food waste-related challenges that occur in grocery retail. One part of the portfolio is an advanced digital date-checking app that identifies and keeps track of products that are about to reach their sell-by date.

Identifying products at risk of reaching this date at an early stage helps retailers take the appropriate action to ensure that goods are sold rather than wasted. Results from Spar stores using Whywaste’s solutions show that they have been able to reduce their food waste by up to 40%.

“At Spar International we are always looking for new and innovative ways to meet the needs of our customers, which is why our partnership with Whywaste, an end-to-end digital solution for food waste in retail, is an ideal fit for us. Technology to support the green agenda is becoming a permanent fixture in retail and Spar International is wholeheartedly behind this trend,” said Tom Rose, Head of International Operations at Spar International.

This is the third partnership to support food waste reduction by Spar, following agreements with Gander and Too Good To Go, previously announced.

“We are truly excited about the new partnership with Spar International. I think Spar’s philosophy ‘Better Together’ definitely also applies in the fight against food waste and believe that together Spar and Whywaste can have a real impact on reducing the waste”, added Kristoffer Hagstedt, CEO and Co-Founder of Whywaste.