Albert Heijn is stepping up the fight against food waste. The Ahold Delhaize subsidiary has developed a solution in-house that bundles its four existing initiatives against food waste in its customer app. The so-called ‘Laatste Kans Koopjes’ – Last Chance Bargains – offer dynamically graded discounts on products with a short shelf life. Customers can see the offers in real time in the app for each store before they even enter one of the retailer’s locations. With this initiative, Albert Heijn aims to increase the sale of marked-down products by 25 percent in order to save over five million kilograms of food.
The ‘Laatste Kans Koopjes’ offers have been available in all of the retailer’s stores since September 8 and are visible in the Albert Heijn app. The closer a product is to its expiry date, the greater the discount – up to 70 percent. In the retailer’s stores, products are also marked with promotion stickers shortly before they reach their best-before date.
Albert Heijn combines four existing food waste systems in its app. The ‘AH Overblijvers’ solution cuts down on food that is still edible shortly before or on the day of the best-before date, ‘Groente & fruitzakje’, the fruit and vegetable bag, bundles surplus or slightly damaged goods in this product group, ‘Dynamisch Afprijzen’ adjusts prices in real time with the help of AI and ‘Brood van Gisteren’ allows Albert Heijn to sell baked goods from the previous day at a significantly reduced price. The combination of all initiatives provides the retailer’s customers with a transparent, store-specific overview of the number and discount of food products shortly before or on the day of the best-before date.
Albert Heijn wants to halve food waste by 2030
Nienke Tjerkstra, responsible for sustainability at Albert Heijn, says about the current initiative: “Thanks to this intelligent system, we expect to sell 25 percent more marked-down products and thus significantly reduce food waste.” With this campaign, Albert Heijn aims to reduce food waste by 50 percent by 2030 – compared to the figures from 2016.
As the Retail Optimiser reported, Albert Heijn has been increasing sales of fresh produce close to the best-before date by dynamically reducing prices throughout the day since the end of 2022. Albert Heijn uses an AI-based system in all stores equipped with electronic shelf labels. The solution not only dynamically adjusts prices throughout the day, but also takes into account historical sales data, local and seasonal factors, weather forecasts and current stock levels.
