In the Netherlands, the food waste rate is 2 billion kilograms per year. At the supermarket level, the fruits, vegetables and bakery departments generate the majority of this waste—but much of it can be avoided in the first place. In 2018, Albert Heijn, together with other Dutch supermarkets, jointly set the target of halving food waste by 2030 compared to 2015 levels. Accordingly, Albert Heijn designed and implemented different strategies: 

1. A smart ordering system that adjusts food orders/the supply automatically based on expected sales; 

2. Using an app to determine the amount of fresh bread to be baked at different hours; 

3. The ‘Bread of yesterday’ programme—which makes bread from the day before extra affordable, selling a bag of bread buns for 50 cents; 

4. Putting a 35% discount sticker on products that are approaching their shelf-life-end while gathering them together in a fridge at the centre of the shop, as the discounted products of the day; 

5. Donating the remaining food waste to food banks. 

These strategies have reduced the amount of food waste generated by Albert Heijn each year since 2018 by 21%—falling from 6.2 to 4.9 tonnes of food waste per million euros of food sold.