How can convenience store owners and managers contribute to sustainability — and increase their own profits? The answer is surprisingly simple.

Statistics show that about 795 million people worldwide are undernourished — which is about one in nine people. At the same time, about one-third of all food produced is wasted at some point in the supply chain1.

While these numbers are daunting, the good news is that advanced software solutions are readily available that can identify, track and eliminate food waste across the supply chain. Not only can this activity serve a humanitarian purpose by diverting wasted food, but it can also have a significant impact on profitability.

As one of the fastest-growing sources of fresh and prepared foods, convenience stores can play a critical role in supporting sustainability. Today, many C-store owners and managers are not using technology to track and eliminate food waste — but, as their food sales volumes continue to grow, it simply makes good business sense to leverage the power of technology to target this financial and humanitarian issue.

Targeting Waste: It’s Easier Than You Think

Convenience store owners may feel overwhelmed with the many roles they are playing in today’s retail landscape. They are simultaneously operating gas stations, restaurants, grocery stores and business centers — while also offering an array of personal services like dry cleaning. Adding a sustainability initiative to this mix may seem impossible.

But targeted software solutions make this effort easier and more affordable than store owners might expect. These technology solutions gather existing data on food demand, availability actual sales, inventories, deliveries and waste — then apply analytics to create predictive forecasts and make strategic recommendations.

JDA Enterprise Store Operations attacks the critical issue of food waste by ensuring that the right food items are always in the right place at the right time. By studying demand at the individual store level — and considering such factors as delivery constraints or upcoming local events — JDA Enterprise Store Operations creates an incredibly accurate forecast for all C-store items, including fresh and prepared foods.

To Sustainability and Beyond

As C-store owners replace their manual forecasting and inventory management methods with the speed and automation of JDA Enterprise Store Operations, they can significantly reduce their level of food waste — improving both their sustainability footprint and their financial results. They can also improve customer service by having the right fresh and prepared food items in place when shoppers enter the store.

Beyond sustainability, JDA Enterprise Store Operations delivers general performance improvements such as:

  • Reducing site-level inventories by as much as 10%
  • Increasing sales by up to 4%
  • Improving operating margins by as much as 7%
  • Reducing loss by 25%
  • Slashing administrative and ordering time by 80%

Ready to Get Started?

As global hunger statistics continue to climb, there’s no need to wait to start targeting food waste — while also achieving broad financial and service benefits.

Watch JDA’s five-part video series highlighting the sustainability challenge, as well as other opportunities to improve your C-stores’ performance.

Backed by the intelligence, automation and analysis of JDA Enterprise Store Operations, you’ll find it surprisingly easy to take your stores’ sustainability — and other results — to an entirely new level.