Latest fresh food analytics report takes aim at food waste

A focus on less food waste and more sales

It’s easy to understand why, then, the food industry continuously struggles to manage and improve freshness in order to provide a consistent customer experience while lowering costs, eliminating food waste, and focusing on bottom line sales.

Unlike the manufacturing operation that controls production under one roof, food producers have to deal with diverse growing environments, natural product variations, and changing weather conditions.

New technologies help solve fresh food issues

Fortunately, new technologies and advanced analytics are available to help the fresh food value chain pinpoint the root causes of fresh failures and optimize freshness from the field to the shopping cart.

Advanced tools and techniques help producers, distributors, and retailers:

• Reduce food waste

• Identify freshness loss

• Solve root cause issues

By making minor process or system changes, companies can take a holistic approach and prevent freshness loss issues where they start.

Beyond insights: The impact of Fresh Analytics

Based on our experience, Fresh Analytics accelerates identification of value drivers while also enabling value capture in an organization. Here are some examples:

• Identifying quick wins: Use sources and causes of freshness loss to develop initiatives that prevent avoidable causes with minor process or system changes.
• Managing and tracking loss of freshness: Integrate advanced waste dashboards and root cause analytics into the current management reporting and tracking process to actively reduce food waste across the value chain.
• Predicting and troubleshooting potential issues: Generate, connect, and automate supply chain data to predict and anticipate supply chain issues based on weather, sourcing, planning, and inventory management conditions.

The latest report

Deloitte’s newest position paper on these topics is now available. We delve deeper into the issues above and help you identify quick wins, reduce food waste, and troubleshoot potential food freshness issues with advanced, automated supply chain solutions.

The report includes a brief case study where a leading retailer saved more than $200 million by eliminating food waste.

While fresh food challenges may seem daunting at first, advanced techniques and ongoing technology improvements are helping all kinds of food industry players, from farms to retailers, keep profits from ending up in the trash.

Download the report to learn more.