Shoppers are wild about reduced price foods that are close to their exploration date, according to new figures from Dansk Supermarked and Coop.
“They sell out,” Coop spokesperson Signe Freese told TV2 News. “It does’t matter at Irma or Fakta, our customers are very happy.”
Reese said that they started selling nearly past-dated foods as an effort to combat waste and the effort has met with positive response from customers.
Maja Lindstrøm Sejersen, the communications consultant at Dansk Supermarked said the have adopted a systematic approach to lowering the prices on food with a short shelf life.
“We have engaged a number of IT systems, which make it easier to keep track of when a product needs to be marked down and how many we have of them,” Sejersen said. “We are also better at helping customers find these items.”
Big savings
The popularity of nearly expired food has helped stores write off between 10 and 20 percent fewer fruits and vegetables and more than 50 percent less bread than they did before.
“They may seem like small things, but they make a big difference, and our customers appreciate it,” said Sejersen. “There is no one who wants to throw out food that could potentially be sold and eaten, so we continue to work on reducing food waste in all of our stores.”
Denmark is the EU country where supermarket chains have focused most on food waste.
READ MORE: Food waste in Denmark down by 25 percent
Food waste in Denmark has decreased by 4.4 billion kroner – nearly 25 percent – over the past five years, according to agricultural group Landbrug and Fødevarer.
