Solving the food waste problem through collaboration: Gander, Iceland, Olio & Retail Insight
06 October 2026 | Bryan RobertsSee how collaboration creates a better outcome for colleagues, customers and the planet.
Iceland – one of the UK’s leading grocery retailers via its eponymous and Food Warehouse chains and its online presence – has committed to a far-reaching food waste reduction target. This is by no means unique among its British supermarket peer group, but what sets Iceland apart has been its adaptable and collaborative strategies that it has deployed to reach its targets.
What we like about Iceland’s approach is that it has four key focal points: each initiative it undertakes must have a benefit for colleagues, for shoppers, for food waste and for the business. This ‘mutual win’ approach ensures that each endeavour is not only sustainable in its purest sense but also sustainable from an operational and economic perspective too.
As part of its food waste reduction programme, Iceland has identified several important workstreams that enable food waste reduction:
Supply chain optimisation: collaboration with suppliers to optimise shelf-life, case size and pack sizes etc.
Product price markdown process: a collaboration with Retail Insight to create store-specific category-level routines for date checking and a two-stage markdown process.
Lucky dip: Mixed bags of chilled and frozen products sold to online customers at deeply discounted prices.
Gander/Olio price reductions feed: In partnership with Gander and Olio, Iceland feeds live, store-specific markdown and stock information through Gander and the Olio apps to local shoppers.
Colleague giveaway: End-of-life food offered free to in-store colleagues.
Olio Food Waste Hero: Residual end-of-life food collected daily by Olio volunteers and advertised to local Olio users for collection.
Working with Gander and Olio to drive value and minimise waste
The Retail Insight system drives a store- and product-specific date-checking and two-stage markdown process, directly feeding the markdowns into the Gander platform. The Gander solution is live in over 1,600 stores across the UK, alerting participating shoppers (via touchpoints such as the Gander, Olio and Snappy Shopper apps, Facebook and Google depending on the retailer) to markdowns in their local stores. Retailers benefit via improved routines, lower shrink rates and higher footfall. Olio, meanwhile, has become a global leader in food waste reduction: an app-based community with over five million members in the UK alone, where individuals and companies can advertise surplus food to those who wish to take it off their hands and avoid food waste.
Iceland’s partnership with Retail Insight, Gander and Olio is a great example of the aforementioned four-way win.
Colleagues benefit from a simplified, more efficient process. Rather than the previously laborious twice-a-week date checking process, the Retail Insight system enables colleagues – via their PDAs – to undertake a more targeted date-checking and markdown process each day, already reducing waste by ensuring that routines are adhered to and that food approaching end-of-life is rarely overlooked, while also being marked down appropriately for the specific store. Colleagues that we spoke to were full of positivity for this solution as well as the fact that the Gander/Olio feed is clearly successful at driving incremental footfall and selling through reduced items.
The business benefits thanks to enhanced in-store productivity, reduced shrink, improved sell-through of RTC stock, a boost in footfall and ensuring unsold food is being positively redistributed to colleagues and the local community.
Shoppers benefit by receiving near real-time alerts on which products have been marked down, how much is in stock, the ‘before and after’ prices and the percentage markdown.
And, clearly, the environment benefits as surplus food is bought and/or redistributed before becoming food waste.
As economic stress continues to beset a broad swathe of shoppers, shopping the RTC section has become a necessity for many. The Gander/Olio solution ensures that this is less of a roulette-style daily trip to the store and more of a focused and informed trip whereby value-conscious shoppers know what – and how much of it – is available at marked down prices.
This benefit has been extremely well received by Iceland shoppers:
“I love the reductions feed and use it to help me plan what to purchase and what we are having for dinner. It really helps to reduce my food bill and to stop waste food which I hate to see.”
“The price reductions are amazing: today I saved £6.19 across six items! Close to half price, and wonderful that it's not going to waste. … I've recommended it to save food waste, money and wasted journeys.”
“I think the reductions feed is a great idea because it makes it easier for people to find food at reduced prices and save money on their shopping. I think it's useful, simple and beneficial for both customers and businesses.”