EURO 2024 Copenhagen
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2097. The Impact of Customer Picking on Retail Food Waste

Invited abstract in session MA-50: Food Waste, stream Retail Operations.

Monday, 8:30-10:00
Room: M2 (building: 101)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Alexander Hübner
Supply and Value Chain Management, Technical University Munich
2. Fabian Schäfer
Supply and Value Chain Management, Technical University of Munich
3. Tobias Winkler
Supply and Value Chain Management, Technical University of Munich
4. Kai Hoberg
Supply Chain and Operations Strategy, Kühne Logistics University

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of customer withdrawal on retail food waste. Customer picking for the freshest items (called last-in-first withdrawal) leaves products with shorter expiration dates on the shelves. However, currently applied barcodes do not include the expiration date. We partnered with a retailer to collect missing expiration data. We implemented a process adaption in a pilot warehouse and develop a novel method to quantify waste caused by customer picking in panel data. Our findings show that, on average, 45% of the food waste in our sample is caused by customer picking. Building on the results of the customer picking waste quantification, an exploratory approach is applied to identify product and store-related drivers.

Keywords

Status: accepted


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