Measures against "food loss" that expands business "Starbucks" sells donuts etc. at a 20% discount from 3 hours before closing

Starbucks Coffee Japan (Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo), which operates a coffee chain store, will sell unsold donuts, cakes, and sandwiches at a 20% discount from 3 hours before the store closes from August 23.

It is an effort to reduce the waste of food in stores, and a part of the sales generated by this will be donated to the certified NPO National Children's Cafeteria Support Center, Musubie.

The number of shops opened in the market "Let" that can reduce food loss and inventory loss handled by the app operator Let (Minato-ku, Tokyo) has nearly doubled in the past nine months, and NEC <6701> Has embarked on a demonstration experiment to reduce food loss using smart street lights, and efforts to reduce food loss are expanding.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, the amount of food loss in 2018 reached 6 million tons, of which the amount of food loss generated by food-related businesses accounted for more than half, 3.24 million tons. Efforts to reduce food loss at stores such as Starbucks are likely to continue to increase.

User support in the experiment

Starbucks aims to reduce waste from stores by 50% by 2030. About 70% of the food waste discharged from Starbucks stores is bean dregs after coffee extraction, but about 15% is due to expired food.

In March 2021 at about 90 stores in Tokyo and Saitama prefecture, we conducted an experiment on selling donuts, cakes, and sandwiches at a discount, and users said, "You can contribute to good things by buying at Starbucks." But if we can reduce the amount of waste, we got the approval, so we decided to expand it nationwide.

Musubie is supporting the children's cafeteria, and Starbucks says that by donating to Musubie, it will help reduce food loss and help local children to eat better and create the future.

90% reduction in food loss by AI prediction

Let announced on August 17 that the number of "Let" stores has exceeded 11,000 in August 2021, which is about double the number in November 2020. Against the background of increasing needs for new online sales channels of food-related businesses due to Korona-ka, as a result of aggressive efforts to promote food sales, including holding events within Let, significant results It is said that it led to an increase in store openings.

On August 17, NEC will utilize the traffic data obtained from the network camera installed in the smart street light installed in the center of Okahigashi, Nippe Park in Hirakata City, Osaka Prefecture, to increase the number of visitors and sales of nearby bread makers. Predicted and announced that it conducted a demonstration experiment to reduce food loss.

NEC made a demand forecast using AI (artificial intelligence) based on the flow data acquired from the camera of the smart street light, the number of customers in the past, the number of sales, the weather information, and the calendar information. It was confirmed that there are cases where it can be reduced by up to 90% from the previous results.

Sentence: M & A Online editorial department