Retail Loss Prevention of Fresh Food and Perishable Goods

Mar 22, 2021 | RFID

Retailers lose millions of Rands each year on food waste due to poor inventory control. Food waste not only impacts the store, as well as profits; it also impacts the environment and wastes countless resources that went into growing and distributing the food. 

With increasing concerns about the economy and the environment, retailers simply can’t afford to allow the food waste situation to continue uncontrolled.

Retail Loss Prevention of fresh products

There is a huge opportunity for retailers to improve their fresh food management, and Milestone has the answer!  

How to Prevent Fresh Food Loss in a Retail Shop

A newly developed Radio Frequency Identification tag-based retail monitoring system that assists with expiry date, stock management and other factors that lead to stock losses and shrinkage. A scanner is used to communicate with an RFID tag which can be programmed with relevant expiry / best before data. These tags can be applied to a variety of surfaces, and don’t contain any batteries to power them. 

Benefits of RFID Tags for Inventory Management

RFID offers several benefits such as automating processes that could be labour intensive, as well as accurate stock management that reduces lack of visibility on perishable goods. RFID can be programmed according to “best before” and expiry dates and can then read on a user-friendly programme that could be referenced at any point. 

Better inventory management

Because of the customisable data input, users can easily view when stock is getting closer to its best before date, meaning that management can get the stock sold by implementing special pricing and putting them on more visible shelving to move the stock out faster. 

Improved and more efficient stock take

RFID tags can be read at a distance with handheld reader which results in faster inventory processing. This assist stock managers in determining which stock needs to be replenished, and which needs to be held off on. RFID also has a very high accuracy rate when compared to other stock take systems.

Reduced labour costs

Manual stocktakes are time-consuming and often needs to be done afterhours to limit the number of excess staff taken from the store floor to provide customer service. This overtime needs to be accounted for according to the Labour Relations Act. 

With RFID, inventory shipments received and check-in, counting and shipment verification can be done very quickly and automatically in a few scans without the need for multiple employees to process them. 

Loss Prevention in Retail Stores 

Milestone supplies RFID, EAS and other systems to the South African market, including brands Checkpoint and Keonn which are international bestsellers in the retail loss prevention industry. Many retailers struggle with inventory accuracy and fall victim to large losses due to poor waste and inventory management. With a simple solution, stock can be managed efficiently and effectively. Contact our experts to see which retail loss prevention solution is right for your store!

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