Supermarkets Use AI to Reduce Prices, Food Waste
Do you like to keep an eye out for discount stickers on food that's close to its sell-by date?
Well, those stickers might soon be a thing of the past, as supermarkets may start using AI to keep track of when prices need to be reduced.
Some supermarkets in mainland Europe are already using this dynamic pricing system, and have either digital price tags on the shelves, or high-tech stickers attached to the products themselves.
The AI system checks if a product is likely to expire on the shelf before it gets sold, and then decides whether to reduce its price or not, based on a number of factors.
If there is a lot of the product still in stock, the price might be reduced by a lot.
But if the product was in high demand at the same time of year in previous years, and therefore more likely to sell now, the reduction would be less.
Wasteless, an Israeli company that's providing this AI system to many supermarkets in mainland Europe, says the system can reduce the amount of food waste in stores by a third.
Dynamic pricing not only stops food from expiring on the shelves, but lets supermarkets know what products aren't as popular, which stops them from over-ordering, the company said to the BBC.
Some UK supermarkets, where reports say around 300,000 metric tons of food are wasted per year, are said to be in talks to start using Wasteless' AI system from 2024.
But while dynamic pricing might mean less food waste, it also might make it difficult for customers to understand how much the products originally cost. And unpredictable prices would be a challenge for people who don't have a lot of money to spend.
It could even make certain products more expensive in certain areas than in others, if they are in high demand.
