Smartway AI Platform for Short-Dated Fresh Food in Retail

Smartway was founded in 2012 by Paul-Adrien Menez and Christophe Menez under the name Zéro-Gâchis, and is based in Saint-Herblain near Nantes, France. It helps supermarkets cut the waste of short-dated fresh and perishable products, which costs retailers margin, staff time on manual date checks and disposal fees.

The platform combines Smartdetection, which flags products nearing their date in seconds, with Smartdecision, which uses AI-driven dynamic pricing to time discounts, donations or other end-of-life options. Smartorder and Smartsupply recommend order quantities and align supply with store demand, and the new Smarttasking module standardises fresh execution across stores. Retail users include Carrefour, Auchan, E.Leclerc, Intermarché, Monoprix, Alcampo in Spain, Kavanagh Group in the UK and Vallarta Supermarkets in the US.

• Smartdetection: spots short-dated products on shelves in seconds.
• Smartdecision: AI dynamic pricing and end-of-life decisions for each product.
• Smartorder: AI order recommendations for fresh departments.
• Smartsupply: aligns supply with store-level demand.
• Smarttasking: standardises fresh execution and tasks store to store.
• Multilingual deployment: available in English, French, Spanish and Italian across 12 countries.

• Vietnamese hypermarket and supermarket chains automating near-date markdowns on dairy, bakery and ready meals.
• Convenience store chains detecting expiring items quickly to reduce manual checks.
• Fresh departments aligning daily orders with store demand to avoid overstock.

• Less waste: Smartway cites about 40% reduction in food waste.
• Higher margin: end-of-life modules add 0.3 to 0.6 margin points and about 2 points on fresh margin.
• Labour savings: up to four times less time on date checks and 75% less labour time.
• Proven at scale: Alcampo recovered 12 million EUR of margin across more than 400 stores.

New food waste laws in France and Spain push supermarkets to manage short-dated stock actively, and retailers elsewhere are adopting AI markdowns to protect margin. As modern trade grows in Southeast Asia, supermarket chains face the same need to sell near-date fresh products before they become waste.

Founded in 2012 as Zéro-Gâchis; office in Saint-Herblain, France. Raised 10 million EUR in 2021 and rebranded as Smartway. Team members in twelve countries across four continents. Co-founder Paul-Adrien Menez named an MIT Technology Review Innovator Under 35 Europe in 2019. Reports 420 million products saved and 500,000 tonnes of CO2 avoided.