Selfly Store expiry date management for food waste control

Consumer demand and interest towards fresh, healthier food options have grown in the past years. But with 1.3 billion tons of food going to waste every year, the tools to limit food waste must also evolve. With Selfly Store expiry date management feature, item-level data can be used to reduce food waste.

RFID technology is used in the food industry to automate processes, provide real-time ‘track and trace’ –functionalities, and support next-generation unmanned retail. By providing transparency to the supply chain, sales, and inventory, the use of this technology enables better demand forecasting and stock planning, which can help in food-waste reduction.

The RFID-enabled Selfly Store expiry date management feature is specially designed to help food retailers, such as grocers, caterers, and other fresh food providers to reduce food waste. The feature is built on Selfly Cloud and designed to be used together with Selfly Store's smart vending machines. The expiry date feature provides food retailers with:

Automatic tracking of expiry dates

Utilizing sustainable ECO RFID tags and the Selfly Cloud, the expiry date of each fresh food package sold from the Selfly Cabinet can be tracked in real-time. As RFID technology gives a unique identity to products on item-level, manual checking of expiration dates is not required. Item-level identification of products is unique to RFID-based solutions and cannot be achieved with other systems, such as weight- or camera-based systems.

Instant notifications

Automatic notifications of soon-to-expire products are visible on Selfly Cloud. Alerts can also be received via email. This enables cabinet operators to react in time to boost the sale of these items before the expiry date or ‘use-by’ date is reached.

Expiry-related discount rules

The system gives cabinet operators the ability to automate item-, cabinet- and location-specific discount rules for products that are approaching the end of their shelf life. With this remote price management, the sales of soon-to-expire products can be boosted without the need for on-site staff.

Display screen advertisement

The Selfly Cabinet display screen can be used to display promotions, discounts or other advertisements to boost the sales of expiring products. The ads can be created and activated remotely.

Automatic locking of cabinet

Should there be a situation where a product expires before it is removed from the cabinet, automatic locking of the cabinet can be enabled. This helps prevent the use of the cabinet by consumers before the expired items have been removed.

Selfly Store by Stora Enso end-to-end solution features

Selfly Store Model 3: RFID-enabled self-service point of sale – completely unmanned, data-driven and mobile.
RFID tags: RFID tags with user memory record item-level data, such as expiry dates.
Selfly Desktop Encoding Station: Portable on-location encoding of product information onto RFID tags.
Selfly Cloud: Access to all Selfly Store cabinets and product-level data, such as sales and inventory status, expiry date information, and dynamic ads and pricing.
Selfly Refill App: Enabling easy and transparent replenishment of products into the Selfly Store cabinet.

Here is how the expiry date feature works:

Product shelf lifetime is defined on the Selfly Cloud.
Product and actual expiry date information is encoded to RFID tags with user memory using the Selfly Desktop Encoding Station. The tags are then attached to product packaging.
When refilling the smart machine, the machine reads the expiry date information of each product automatically.
Item-specific expiry date information and notifications of soon-to-expire products are available in real-time on the Selfly Cloud. Notifications can also be received by email.
Display ads and dynamic pricing that promote soon-to-expire products can be activated from Selfly Cloud to show on cabinet screen, thus proactively reducing food waste.
A safety feature on the Selfly Store cabinet can be activated to prevent consumers from accidentally purchasing expired products by automatic locking of the cabinet in case of expired products inside.