Invafresh Acquires Whywaste to Bolster Sustainability Capabilities
Fresh grocery platform Invafresh has acquired Whywaste, a Swedish provider of end-of-life product solutions for grocery retailers and convenience stores, including ASDA, Tesco One Stop, SPAR International and Coop Sweden, to help lower food waste, maintain regulatory compliance and boost profitability.
“I’m excited to welcome Whywaste as part of the Invafresh team and look forward to working with them to expand the global footprint of our combined Fresh Retail platform offering,” said Tim Spencer, CEO of Toronto-based Invafresh. “Throughout the due diligence process, I was impressed by both the caliber of talent at Whywaste and the quality of their products. That talent and product quality has allowed Whywaste to establish themselves at the forefront of the rapidly growing sustainability movement by enabling grocery retailers to profitably reduce food waste.”
[Read more: “SPECIAL REPORT: The Greener Grocer”]
According to John Harmon, senior technology analyst at New York-based Coresight Research, “We estimate that U.S. food waste totaled more than $650 billion in 2022, based on $1.25 trillion of food and beverages purchased for off-premises consumption, combined with an estimate that 35% of food goes unsold or uneaten. Sixty-three percent of grocery retailers view food waste reduction as very important in meeting corporate sustainability goals. The addition of Whywaste’s suite of waste reduction tools to Invafresh’s AI-enhanced demand forecasting capabilities could help retailers achieve those goals.”
The acquisition enables accelerated global growth for Invafresh and extends the functionality of its artificial-intelligence/machine-learning enhanced Fresh Retail Platform with Whywaste’s end-of-life solutions, which include advanced date checking, markdown price optimization and donation platform capabilities. According to Whywaste, customers using its platform on average realize 30% less waste and a 17% increase in revenue from optimizing discount pricing. Merging the two platforms is expected to provide grocery retailers with a way to drive revenue, reduce shrink, deliver a better shopping experience for their customers and help retailers meet their sustainability targets.
“With the innovation Invafresh brings to the grocery retail market with their Fresh Retail Platform, partnering with them is the natural evolution for Whywaste,” noted Kristoffer Hagstedt, CEO of Gothenburg, Sweden-based Whywaste. “Food waste is a global challenge, and our combined solution gives grocery retailers a proven approach to reducing shrink and and helping them achieve their sustainability goals.”
