Accenture Innovation Challenge consulting case competition, Ohio State University winning team presentation for World Wildlife Fund's food waste reduction initiative. Utilizing strategies of Ugly Food Sales and Time Sensitive Pricing to reduce food waste at the grocery retail link of the supply chain by leveraging existing partnerships between World Wildlife Fund and grocery retailers.
2. Grocery
Retailers
How can WWF influence grocery retailers OR food service kitchens to
develop strategies that prevent food waste throughout their operations
and supply chains?
Time-sensitive PricingUgly Foods
Case Question
4. Ugly Foods
Situation
• Up to 40% of U.S. grown produce thrown away because it is
ugly*
Task
• Facilitate selling opportunities for ugly produce
Action
• Purchase ugly produce from farmers for highly discounted price
• Sell ugly produce to consumers at lower price than A-grade
Result
• Reduction to produce losses in production and retail links on
supply chain
*Lee, Washington Post, 2015
5. Time-Sensitive Pricing
Sell-by dates waste $2,300/day/store
Reducing price when approaching sell-by dates
would encourage FIFO purchasing behaviors
Potential for $1.88 Billion in savings amongst top
six national grocery retailers
6. High Level Gantt Projection
Ugly Food and Time-Sensitive Pricing Implementation Strategy
Phase Task Months
0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16 18 20 22 24 26 28 30 32 34 36
Planning Meetings and planning with WWF and Kroger
Pilot Store Planning
Early Adoption
Pilot Store Implementation and Analysis
Adoption of strategies from 1-2% of stores
Expansion
Working with Kroger to expand into 2-5% of stores
WWF works with other retailers to plan and adopt strategies
Continued implementation with Kroger and top 6 retailers
Phase 1: Planning
0 – 5 Months
Phase 2: Early Adoption
5 months – 2 years
Phase 3: Expansion
2+ Years
7. Summary of Financial Models
NetIncome[MillionsofDollars]
Kroger Produce Net Income Projection
The produce waste reduction
target for ugly foods is
conservative starting at 1% in
2016 and rising incrementally to
25% by the end of 2020. We
assumed an ongoing incremental
investment of $0, $10M, $20M,
$50, $100M, and $200M. With
respect to the time sensitive
pricing, if Kroger can reach a food
waste reduction target of 1% in
2016 followed by 2%, 4%, 7%,
and 10% for the following years.
Kroger can reach net savings of
$18M at the end of 2016 and
$170M at the end of 2020.
Sources: The Food Marketing Institute, The Kroger
Co- Reports & Statements
Notes de l'éditeur
When deciding where WWF should focus its efforts
On the left the graphic illustrates the number of decision makers along each part of the supply chain. So at the production stage, i.e. farmers, there are more individuals making decisions. We see the number of decision makers reach a minimum at distribution & retail.
On the right, is a plot illustrating the ease vs the impact of working with each part of the supply chain. Ease includes how many decision makers WWF would need to collaborate with, the feasibility of implementation, and cost devotion necessary. Impact is reducing the most amount of food waste.
We believe WWF should focus its efforts at the distribution level for two reasons:
Just 6 retailers have 59% of the market share in the U.S., 25% is Walmart, 12% is Kroger (and WWF already has a partnership with Kroger), so WWF working with just 6 retailers will be much easier and cheaper to implement vs working with thousands of kitchens or farmers
Secondly, by focusing on grocery retailers WWF will be able to cut food waste not only at the grocery retailer level, but also the producer level.
The two most feasible and effective ways of doing this are through ugly foods and time sensitive pricing.
Currently, farmers are producing ugly produce and just throwing it away because it does not meet cosmetic standards. This is an example of culling at the production stage and it creates about a 20% shrink. This is a sunk cost that farmers will incur regardless of whether or not this produce is purchased. If we took steps to facilitate ugly food selling opportunities along the supply chain, farmers could increase sales revenue without incurring additional costs.
Similarly, grocery retailers could increase revenues by selling ugly produce at a price discounted from A-grade produce. Because this is a relatively untapped market in the united states, there is a large potential for high contribution margins on this item.