Today on the Menu:

The turnover of the food industry in Germany last year was 186.25 billion euros – a literally billion-euro business. Retailers have an important role to play, which must be performed responsibly in order not to lose consumer confidence. In the past, journalists performed a gatekeeper function by evaluating products and evaluating information, e.g. from press releases. If retailers also want to act ethically, the interest must be in offering food information as simply and transparently as possible. Because in addition to the positive trend of conscious nutrition, there is also the opposite movement. 

According to the BMEL nutrition report, the number of people who cook daily in Germany has risen from 41 percent to 46 percent since 2016. On the other hand, the number of people who do not cook at all has also grown slightly – from 10 percent to 12 percent. The easier it is to cook and provide information about the ingredients, the more likely it is that you can promote the first trend and reduce the second.

Another function of the latest generation of price tags is currently still little used but can potentially play a decisive role – especially in combination with other technologies. The next generation of conventional electronic price tags has so-called »pick-by-light« functions. The customer orders via the app, in the store the order is made available for them to pick up in a compact and central location or sent home. Packing in the store is facilitated by small LED lamps that automatically indicate where the goods on the shelf that belong to the order are – in other words, "pick-by-light". Since the LED lamps can flash in several colours, parallel processing of Pick & Collect orders is possible. Smart Locker systems that can maintain certain temperature levels such as frozen food or heat counters also open up completely new possibilities.