SPAR Austria To Combat Food Waste With Digitalisation

By: Trademagazin editor Date: 2022. 09. 14. 08:38

Retailer SPAR Austria is aiming to minimise food waste in its stores through new methods, including increased digitalisation of the group’s inventory. In cooperation with the company’s IT unit, Microsoft, and other partners, the retailer has developed a solution that enables more targeted order suggestions and demand forecasts for all stores.

Elsewhere, to further combat food waste, the Austrian arm of the global retailer has created a wide set of measures alongside the ordering optimisation

Using AI, a new solution from SPAR ICS looks at data around sales volumes, weather conditions, marketing promotions, seasonality, and other factors to produce a precise forecast of optimal product order quantities per store. An automatic ordering system that has been in place at SPAR Austria for decades forms the basis of the new system, which has recently trialled in the fruit and vegetable area.

The new system claims a prediction accuracy of over 90%, meaning that the right amount is available in the right store at the right time. The retailer is implementing the project in cooperation with SPAR ICS, Microsoft, and Paiqo, an AI company.

Microsoft Azure’s Advanced Analytics tools use cloud-based data, enabling an easily-managed supply chain.

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