By Hugo Fuentes Diaz, Founder, The Owl Solutions
Did you know that 30-40% of food in the US is wasted every year? Food waste can occur at the supply chain level for several different reasons such as surplus inventory, new product launch failures, unpredictable consumer demand, packaging changes etc.
Most of the products wasted in the supply chain typically result in inventory write-offs or obsolescence, which is a product that a business can no longer sell. This ends up negatively impacting an organization’s finances and sustainability efforts.
To reduce the amount of financial, time, and environmental waste that expired food is creating, companies can focus on the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) – a framework that encourages organizations to consider the social, environmental, and economic impacts of their business.
TBL allows organizations to measure their business impact by focusing on 3P’s: people, profits, and planet. Reductions in inventory waste can improve the 3Ps, fostering a better outcome for each.
People
A major reason inventory expiration is so prominent in food companies today is the extensive use of old processes. For example, many companies use multiple supply chain IT systems, which end up creating siloed data.
These old processes typically result in reporting styles that involve extracting data from each separate system that is often exported into spreadsheets, vetted, and compiled into a report.
This type of manual reporting consumes a lot of productive work hours and leads to inefficiency for employees.
It is easier and more productive for inventory professionals to adjust their processes with improved technology that centralizes data sources and provides real-time analytics into everyday inventory levels. Not only will this help employees reduce associated write-offs risks, but it cuts the amount