Scientific Data Services
Talk on "Data-Driven Approaches for Reducing Food Waste in Grocery Retailing"
"Data-Driven Approaches for Reducing Food Waste in Grocery Retailing" is the title of Dr. David Winkelmann talk, which is being organised by the "Zentrum of Statistik" at Bielefeld University. It will take place on Tuesday, 21 October 2025 from 12:00 Uhr - 13:00 in W9-109.
Grocery retailers face the trade-off between overstocking, potentially generating food waste, and risking customer dissatisfaction through stock outs. To ensure high service levels, many retailers accept excess inventory, contributing to the approximately 11 million tons of food discarded annually in Germany, over 10% of which originates in the retail sector. In collaboration with the German government, major retailers have therefore committed to halving food waste by 2030. Achieving this goal requires more accurate demand forecasts that capture operational complexities. While demand forecasting has been widely studied by the scientific literature, specific challenges remain. For example, retailers frequently apply price reductions to units nearing expiration: such discounts stimulate short-term customer demand and mitigate the risk for food waste, but if these inflated sales figures are not modelled appropriately, forecasts systematically overestimate future demand and perpetuate overstocking. Using data from a major European grocery retailer, this study aims to contribute to the reduction of food waste in the retail sector by improving forecasts for these specific challenges.