How do supermarkets like Costco and Wegmans deal with food products that have quicker than normal expiry to prevent as much waste as possible? An example is Wegmans producing pizza dough for customers, but also making their own pizza throughout the day to sell hot by the slice or pie, and cold whole pizzas they sell to customers to be heated up at home. *Not to mention the variety of dough they offer—white, wheat, gluten free; and the pizza varieties on those dough types.*
I know as a society we have a terrible issue with food waste, but how do supermarkets calculate their sales to production ratio enough to make a profit with so many different items expiring on different days?
In: 3
They don’t, they test it.
Say they’re gonna sell a new kind of, idk, prepped sushi roll.
They just start with one location, and maybe the make 50 rolls a day for a week. After a week, if they sold all 50 every day they’ll up it to 100 the next week. If those all sell out then they up it again the next week. Or maybe they cut it down if they didn’t sell out.
They do that for weeks at a handful of locations to collect data. Maybe they discover they usually need around 100 on week days, but only 50 on week ends. Or something. They test it for a while and collect all that data.
They then use that data to come up with how they are going to roll it out to all of the stores. Then the individual stores will put it out and also keep track of it themselves. Say one locations finds that they’re never selling out, that location might individually pull back their production.
So those first initial weeks can absolutely see food waste and loss of money, but they use that data to fine-tune what they do in the future to make money.
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