Sato and Comerso partnership helps prevent food waste for grocery retailers.

Picture: Phillipe Merlet, IT and Quality Manager at Comerso

SATO, a global leader in the development of Auto-ID and labelling solutions has partnered with food services specialist, Comerso, to help prevent food waste for one of France’s largest grocery retailers.

According to a report from the French Agency for the Environment and Energy (ADEME), 10 million tons of food is lost or wasted in the country every year. Comerso has worked with SATO to implement an on-demand, linerless label printing solution that helps to draw the consumer’s attention to end-of-life products.

Comerso-sato_budapest-184The system, which utilises SATO’s TH2 and PW2NX Series portable label printers and specially designed hands-free adaptor kits for trolleys, connects automatically to the retailer’s network and database to automate mark-downs for operators. It incorporates SATO linerless labels, which are pressure sensitive labels without a release liner.

Benoit Gourlay, Business Development Manager at SATO France said: “The SATO system removes the possibility of input error and saves on paper and backing liner waste. At a glance, the customer can identify the saving they’ll make if they choose a marked-down item.

“We’ve also added value for the customer by implementing linerless labels, which offer substantial environmental and cost-saving benefits. Not only are we supporting the prevention of unnecessary food waste, we are helping the retailer to reduce its carbon footprint.”

By incorporating SATO’s intuitive TH2 and PW2NX Series printers, the retailer has increased its resale rate of marked-down items by up to 85%. Furthermore, SATO’s track and trace technology, allows the company to review its unsold items against future orders.

Phillipe Merlet, IT and Quality Manager at Comerso added: “Food waste is something we are serious about combatting in France. We’re delighted to have streamlined this mark-down process as a result of our partnership with SATO. We can now highlight end-of-life products to supermarket customers in a few simple steps; saving them money and preventing unnecessary waste.”