Alibaba & Maersk link up

British supermarket chain Sainsbury’s hopes to make customers aware of their food-wasting habits with an app that advises them how to cook and shop. British households waste up to 7 million tons of food each year, worth 14.6bn euro. On average, two in five apples and one in five bananas never get eaten, but an astonishing four out of five families believe they hardly waste food. This prompted the supermarket chain to develop an app (Winnow) to warn people, who it feels are “in denial”, about their consumption habits. The app will record how much and what type of food is discarded and then displays the money the customer basically just threw away. It also keeps track about the items that are often bought but never eaten (like bananas or bagged salads). (retaildetail.eu) 

Aldi is to become the first supermarket to pay staff above the voluntary living wage. The discount chain is increasing its minimum pay rate for more than 3,350 workers to £8.53 an hour - and £9.75 in London - from February 1. It means most staff will get 8p an hour more than the Living Wage Foundation’s £8.45 an hour, and piles pressure on rivals. (mirror.co.uk)

Award-winning salad and sandwich producer The Brunch Box is set for a 900% increase in business with a new £500,000 deal to supply its premium salad range to Tesco Northern Ireland. The new prepared salad range is part of the firm’s strategy for growing the business with continued investment and will also lead to five new jobs bringing the employee total to 130. The new range introduces four prepared salads to Tesco deli counters, including premium coleslaw, French style pasta salad, sweet chilli and cranberry coleslaw, and potato salad. (newsletter.co.uk)

In what could be the wave of the future in procuring global container line capacity, Danish shipping giant Maersk Line and Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba have signed a deal allowing Maersk's Chinese customers to use Alibaba's website to book space on Maersk's vessels. According to published reports out of Asia, Maersk's Chinese shipping customers, as of Dec. 22, can reserve vessel space for their shipping containers on Alibaba's "OneTouch" booking website. Please, click here to read more at dcvelocity.com.

The Internet fresh food platform Yiguo has invested HKD950 million into Lianhua. This now makes Yiguo the second largest shareholder of this Chinese supermarket chain operator. Shanghai Lianhua Supermarket Holdings Company Limited says Yonghui Supermarket agreed to sell its 237,029,400 Lianhua shares to Shanghai Yiguo, accounting for 21.17% of the total issued shares of Lianhua. A representative from Yiguo said that the investment is in line with Yiguo's newly announced nationwide strategy. Prior to this, Yiguo's chief executive officer Zhang Ye said that the company will enhance its offline channel construction. By building a supply chain company, cooperating with offline physical vendors, and establishing nationwide cold chain logistics, Yiguo will realize online and offline full channel construction. (chinaretailnews.com) 

Some 78% of convenience store operators in the US are ’optimistic about the industry’s prospects’ in the first quarter of 2017, according to a study by the National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS). This is a seven-point jump from a year ago. NACS also found that 79% of retailers are optimistic about the US economy, which is a 26-point jump from the last quarter. The study also found that amongst fuel retailers, more than two thirds (68%) saw their fuel sales increase in 2016. Some 63% said that their foodservice sales increased. (esmmagazine.com)

Carrefour has launched an initiative in Spain that is the first step towards the elimination of printed receipts by the company as a whole. The announcement has been made a few days after the one made by Lidl in Switzerland, about allowing its customers to choose whether they want the printed receipt of the purchase or not. (revistainforetail.com)