Cutting food waste and staffing costs with RFID

Each year, 1.3 billion tons of food are wasted world­wide, says the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. And 6.43 million tons of it originates in Japan, according to the Japanese government in 2016—the most recent data available. Businesses are cooperating. Seven-Eleven Japan Co., Ltd. and Lawson Inc. announced shortly after that they would discount onigiri (rice balls) and obento (lunch boxes) nearing expiration. It was a move that could be implemented using traditional labels, but could be enhanced by the use of radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, a technology that originated in World War II but has become a key part of modern inventory management.