Independent retailers are able to save up to £800 a week using the Gander, an app that promotes discounted food items to shoppers in a bid to cut food waste. 

Gander is a mobile app that allows consumers to browse discounted food, that could otherwise be wasted, from stores in their area in real time. It helps shops sell a higher volume of discounted food faster, and at a faster rate. Symbol groups on the app can see a 20-40% improvement on sales of discounted food.

Across the UK, the app has seen “well over a quarter of a million downloads”, and this includes 200 independent retailers currently working with the app.

Speaking exclusively to Better Retailing last week, Gander’s head of business development Stacey Williams shared the ways store owners can make savings and cut waste for their business.

“We’ve seen examples of how independent retailers previously seeing up to £1,000 worth of wastage a week, reduced that to £200 using Gander,” he said.

When asked where store owners see most savings, Williams explained: “We definitely see the improvements in margins in high-value categories like meat and fish and deli, and ready-made meals.

“Quite often, consumers will buy full price items, because they’ve made savings and now have additional income to spend within the convenience store. I would say at least 70% of the consumers who use the app, are still going into store and buying a full price item as well.

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“Another feature that we give retailers is an offers tab within our app.

“So if a store has some key promotions that they want the customers to know about, other than reduced price food, we can also provide that information to the customer at no additional charge to the retailer.”

Independent retailers can also pick up a “real insight into sales data” and improve their reduction approach through this.

“We can inform retailers of what items are selling when, when the popular times are that people are coming in and purchasing ‘reduced to clear’ items,” Williams added. “Therefore, we can then help [indies] hone any sort of reduction policy.”

Williams revealed that following global success, Gander remains committed to expanding further in the UK.

“We are in lots of discussions at the moment with lots of significant retailers – but I can’t discuss more at the moment,” he said. “We see that getting a lot bigger now towards the end of this year, and within 2024.”

Expanding could resolve Gander’s main challenge of facing “pent up demand” for the app in areas where there aren’t “any [partnered] retailers in the area”.

“And then [consumers] are quite disappointed,” Williams said. “I think that’s our biggest frustration at times is just getting it out there to more people.”

Read more about convenience retail apps