HAS About E.Leclerc RéunionE.Leclerc has been present in Reunion since 2009. The brand is run locally by two families of entrepreneurs: the Chong Fah Shen and the Thiaw Kine, who have worked in food distribution for more than fifty years. Today, they share a network of 18 stores (hyper and express), spread across the island.
Source: E.Leclerc Réunion
The subject of food waste has always been present on Reunion Island. Every year, nearly 130,000 tonnes of products are thrown away. “We are islanders, we have different problems from those on the continent: the irregularity of supplies, sometimes their lack, products which arrive with much shorter dates… All this has made us question ourselves as a distributor “, tell Benjamin Chevassutthe general director of E.Leclerc in Reunion.
Test anti-waste solutions
The brand has historically always resorted to food donations to associations, but at the end of 2020, the distributor wants to go further and test the first areas.anti-gasp”of the island, with first attempts in the fresh produce section of seven E.Leclerc hypermarkets. An initially “artisanal” approach, which lacked structure. The distributor then approached the start-up Smartway, which offers solutions based on artificial intelligence. “This helps store teams to detect, using AI, products that are approaching their expiration date and to determine the best way to revalue them. Either through a reduction or through donations to charities,” explain Paul-Adrien MenezCEO of Smartway.
Results which are there since after 20 months of testing, more than a million products have been saved, “the equivalent of 1,228 tonnes of CO²”, precise Benjamin Chevassut. In addition, the solutions offered by Smartway free up valuable time for in-store teams who carried out all the tasks of checking expiry dates… and who chose the best way to promote them, “time-consuming operations likely to cause errors“, details Paul-Adrien Menez.
Smart decision and Smart detection
Now deployed in all 18 E.Leclerc stores on the island, the Smartdécion and Smartdétection solutions are complementary. The first prescribes thanks to AI, “the best way to revalue each product, therefore via a donation or discounts”comments the CEO of the start-up. The second, adopted in April 2024, makes it possible to identify short dates and avoid the presence of expired products on the shelves. E.Leclerc is the first Reunion brand to adopt these solutions.
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