The Expiry Date Management Issue Costing $90bn a Year

Every grocer tracks waste. They count the bins. They measure shrinkage. They run reports. But here's the truth: they're measuring the symptom, not the cause.

The real problem isn't the waste itself. It's visibility. And until that visibility problem is solved, the waste will keep happening, no matter how good the forecasting tools get.

The numbers are hard to ignore.

For grocers specifically, the hidden costs of managing unsold and surplus food amount to €90 billion a year. That's not just the cost of the food. That's the labor, the logistics, the compliance burden, and the lost margin baked into every product that ends up in a bin.

Perishables drive over 80% of food waste, yet the way most grocers manage expiry dates today looks almost identical to how it was done 20 years ago.

What happens when expiration checks are missed?

Timely grocery markdowns recover revenue.
Late markdowns lose margin.
Missed markdowns generate waste.

And any expired product that makes it onto the shelf is a customer experience problem, not just an operational one.

The logic is simple. If a grocer knows a product is nearing its expiry date early enough, they can markdown the price, attract price-sensitive shoppers, and still recoup some of the item's value.

That's better than throwing it out.

But the process that needs to happen before that markdown can even be applied, capturing the expiry date in the first place, is where everything tends to fall apart.

Our work with leading grocers puts store coverage of expiry date capture at around 30%. Some grocers don't capture expiry dates at all, relying instead on system logic and periodic shelf checks to execute grocery markdowns.

That means 70% of perishable items on the shelf are effectively invisible.

Why expiry date management is stuck in the past

Walk into any major grocery store, and it looks like things are running smoothly.

Associates are scanning items, applying stickers, and managing the floor. But beneath the surface, a systemic problem is quietly compounding.

Capturing expiry dates, where it happens at all, is still done manually.

Workers scan a barcode, then read and type the printed date separately. Across hundreds of items, every single shift. It's tedious, it's error-prone, and it's difficult to scale.

The answer to why this hasn't changed lies in the nature of the problem itself:

• Most products only carry a standard 1D barcode.
• The expiry date is printed on the label, not encoded in a way a scanner can read.
• 2D barcodes that could change this are on the way, but adoption is slow.

So until now, there hasn't been a clean, fast, scalable way to capture both pieces of information in a single step.

Neither manual nor semi-automated capture is good enough, given the sheer volume of tasks store associates are expected to complete daily.

And without broad store coverage, grocers simply can't see what's actually sitting on their shelves.

The value of closing the gap

Grocery margins are razor-thin. Even recouping a fraction of an item's cost through a timely markdown is better than a full write-off. But all of that depends on visibility.

When associates can quickly and accurately capture expiry information alongside product barcodes, grocers finally have a real picture of what's on their shelves.

From there, grocery markdown logic can be applied with confidence.

• Category managers define the rules.
• The system flags items approaching expiry.
• Associates know exactly which items to check, when to mark them down, and by how much.

The consequences of not having that visibility multiply fast: products expire and get thrown away, or worse, a customer buys them.

Early markdown opportunities are missed. Price-sensitive shoppers, who would have happily bought a reduced item, walk past it instead.

The margin that could have been recovered is gone.

How to automate expiry date capture at scale

Scandit's Expiry Management and Markdowns Solution addresses the root cause directly. It enables automatic capture of product barcodes and expiry dates.

High-accuracy OCR handles the wide variety of date formats found across different labels. The workflow is fast enough that adoption actually sticks, without significant additional training.

The result:

• 60% reduction in the time needed to capture expiry dates per item.
• Store coverage that scales to include every product the grocer wants to track.
• And with more timely markdowns in place, food is sold, helping reduce waste by up to 40%.

What are the benefits of better expiry date management?

The grocers who solve this first won't just reduce waste. They'll recapture margin, improve compliance, enhance customer trust, and turn a persistent cost center into a genuine competitive advantage.

The waste problem was never really about waste. It was always about visibility.

Now, for the first time, grocers can actually see what's on their shelves before it's too late.

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Expiry Management & Markdowns

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FAQs

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What is expiry date management?

Expiry date management is the process by which grocery retailers capture, track, and act on the printed expiry dates of perishable products across their stores. It covers the workflows and tools used to identify items approaching their expiry date, trigger timely markdowns, and remove expired stock. With the goal of reducing food waste and protecting margins.

Why is expiry date management still done manually?

The core reason is a barcode limitation. Most products only carry a standard 1D barcode, which does not encode the expiry date. The date is printed on the label separately, meaning there has historically been no fast, scalable way to capture both pieces of information in a single step. 2D barcodes that could change this are coming, but adoption across the industry remains slow.

What percentage of grocery items have their expiry dates tracked?

Based on Scandit's work with leading grocers, store coverage of expiry date capture sits at around 30%. That means approximately 70% of perishable items on the shelf are effectively invisible from an expiry management perspective.

How do markdowns relate to expiry date management?

Markdowns are the primary tool grocers use to recover value from products approaching their expiry date. If a grocer knows early enough that a product is nearing expiry, they can reduce the price, attract price-sensitive shoppers, and still recoup some of the item's value. But that markdown window depends entirely on having accurate, timely expiry date data in the first place. Without it, the opportunity is missed, and the product is written off.

How can expiry date capture be automated?

Scandit uses Smart Label Capture to capture both the barcode and the printed date, either simultaneously or sequentially, depending on where they are printed. It's able to capture capture of all major barcode symbologies and ASCII text. It can be configured to scan any label containing these elements, in any combination, any position, and with any number of barcodes and text fields. Read more here.

How much time does automated expiry date capture save?

Scandit's solution reduces the time needed to capture expiry dates by 60% per item. That efficiency gain enables store associates to cover far more products per shift, increasing overall store coverage without requiring significant training or workflow changes.

Can better expiry date management reduce food waste?

Yes. With more accurate and timely expiry date data, grocers can apply markdowns earlier and more consistently, meaning more products are sold before they expire rather than thrown away. Scandit's data shows that better expiry date management can reduce food waste by up to 40%.