Company Sponsor: FairPrice Group
FairPrice Group is one of the leading social retailers in Singapore, comprising of four main social enterprises – NTUC FairPrice, NTUC Foodfare, Kopitiam and NTUC Link.
NTUC FairPrice is a leading retailer in Singapore, serving more than a million shoppers daily through a network of over 370 outlets. It comprises of FairPrice supermarkets, FairPrice Finest, FairPrice Xtra, FairPrice Shop, Cheers, FairPrice Xpress and Unity.
Kopitiam and NTUC FoodFare are local household names, known for providing cooked food services in the heartlands and in institutions respectively.
Together, FairPrice Group aims to be a leader in food, making life better for all.
Title: Food Waste Management With FairPrice Group
Project Team: Bay Jing Jie, Belvan, Jolin Goh Rui Ting, Heeran Ravindran, Lei Wen Xuan, Ong Rui Jie, Randy and Tan Shi Qing
To empower FairPrice Group to reduce its food wastage, specifically grocery items, by 50% through the implementation of a write-off monitoring dashboard and the application of predictive analytics.
In line with the Singapore Green Plan 2030, and to meet the UN Sustainable Development Goal 12 of Responsible Consumption and Production, FairPrice Group had set an objective to reduce 50% of their food waste by 2030, with 2021 as the baseline. FairPrice Group thus commissioned us to build in-house data analytics and dashboarding capabilities to help the Group achieve its food waste management goals.
Previously, FairPrice Group relied solely on year-end reports and physical stock takes to have an overview of the current food waste trends and issues in their FairPrice outlets. They also lacked the ability to forecast any of such food waste trends which were essential in helping them manage their inventory levels.
As such, leveraging on Tableau dashboarding and Python predictive analytics, the team was able to find valuable insights such as identifying which are the outlets with the most write-off and which products contribute the most write-off. These insights were crucial for the FairPrice Group to understand where their food waste management efforts should be focused on. The FairPrice team were thoroughly satisfied with the deliverables and were confident that these deliverables would kickstart their food waste management efforts successfully.
These dashboards and predictive analytics were only possible through the weekly research and meetings we had with the FairPrice Group Internal Audit team, where analysis and solutions were discussed, and multiple iterations of our models and visualization were drafted.
The showcase poster details the actionable insights for the client.
Click image to enlarge poster
Through the project, the team had two key takeaways: stakeholder management and having an inquisitive mind.
Stakeholder management is vital so that we can better manage our client’s expectations and cater to their needs. Hence, enabling them to achieve their own targets and achieving a high level of client satisfaction.
An inquisitive mind is also essential. By continuously reflecting on whether we are on the right track and if there are any areas where improvements can be made, we can exceed expectations and deliver a project that encompasses all the needs that the clients may want.
Moving forward, these skills and lessons learnt will certainly be valuable as we take on more projects, be it in school or in our careers.