A convenience retailer use case from the Baltics using Tasku gig workers and Whywaste app.
Whywaste and Tasku solutions help grocery retailers to reduce food waste, support local communities and improve stores operations
Whywaste is a FoodTech company based in Gothenburg, Sweden. It was founded in 2016 with the mission to help food retailers reduce food waste and work more efficiently. What started out with a digital solution in one store has now expanded to over 40 retail chains in over 17 countries who use the product daily. Whywaste offers a full end-to-end solution developed for, and together with, food retailers.
Tasku is a grocery store task and staff marketplace created by Lithuania-based Traxlo, whose investors include Antler in Stockholm, Sweden. Tasku.app enables local community members to earn extra income by completing small tasks in nearby grocery stores. Tasks vary from product expiration date checking to stocking shelves to checking planogram adherence, and many more. Most importantly, Tasku enables the stores to be run more efficiently while at the same time supporting the local community.
The combination of Tasku and Whywaste helps retailers to achieve sustainable in-store operations, reduce food waste and engage locals.
Focus areas
Before working with Whywaste and Tasku, date checking routines of Lithuanian grocery retailers was manual and expensive since it was time-consuming. This was compounded by the fact that store personnel shortages are very common in the sector. So, it was clear that the store needed a new way of working. Specifically:
Too much time spent manually checking dates.
Lost profit due to food waste.
Lack of personnel to complete this and all other tasks.
Mistakes were made as staff was in too much of a hurry.
Tasku and Whywaste solve the stores’ problems
Now the stores use Tasku and Whywaste solutions in their daily operations and it helps the grocer to reduce food waste and save money. Whywaste advanced date checking app helps to make the date checking process more fail-proof and less time-consuming. The app keeps track of the shortest dates on the shelves. It gives notice when a product is about to expire so that stores can take the action the product needs to get sold instead of becoming waste.
Instead of the stores’ personnel, Tasku gig workers (taskers) are checking expiry dates using the Whywaste solution. Taskers are doing only this specific task and are being paid for correctly completing it.
The efforts have truly paid off:
Because of the systemic approach of Whywaste date checking solution and motivated tasku gig workers, the time needed to check the expirations dropped drastically.
An external tasker is assigned via Tasku and dedicates her full attention to this one task. With this focus and via Whywaste’s date checking solution, the tasker is able to find more soon-to-expire products. These products are discounted in time to be sold instead of expiring and becoming food waste.
Freeing regular store staff from this time-consuming tedious task allows them to better focus on customers and other activities.
In numbers:
A single convenience store saves about 5,337 Eur per year using Whywaste app with Tasku gig workforce.
Based on averaged results from a number of stores:
Before | With Tasku & Whywaste | Savings | Savings (%) | |
Hours per week spent on expiry date checking | 12 h | 5 h | 7 h | -58% |
Labor cost / year (based on 6.9 Eur/h) | 4 317 Eur | 1 719 Eur | 2 518 Eur | -58% |
Yearly waste (based on store turnover and their 0.8% waste rate) | 6 266 Eur | 3 446 Eur | 2 819 Eur | -45% |
Total annual costs (labor + waste) | 10 583 Eur | 5 165 Eur | 5 337 Eur | -50% |
Note: Chain anonymized. 3 locations were used to calculate the estimates.
Check out more:
A tasker shares her experience about checking expiration dates via the date checking solution (in Lithuanian, with subtitles).
Tasku and Whywaste representatives elaborate on cooperation to tackle food waste and sustainability in retail stores together (in English).