Tesco enlists weather experts
Tesco has enlisted its own team of weathermen to make sure it stocks the right products throughout the changeable British seasons.
The supermarket hopes its own forecasters will better enable it to match supply with demand and avoid hundreds of thousands of pounds in food wastage.
Data experts have studied shopping habits and weather patterns across 12 regions for three years, to discover how sales change for every degree of temperature and hour of sunshine.
The system enables Tesco to tailor distribution so that the right kinds of foods go to store locations depending on the weather conditions.
The weather system has shown that a 10 degree rise in temperature can send sales of barbeque meat soaring 300% while a drop in temperature boosts sales of foods such as soup and broccoli.
This summer has been a perfect example of weather swinging between summer temperatures one day and winter the next. The system has already been trialled and predicted low temperatures in July, which increased demand for soup, winter vegetables, and puddings.
Tesco spokesman Jonathan Church says: “In the past it would have taken some time to bring in winter food from our suppliers and get them on our shelves. Now with our weather predictor we can make sure we have the right food on our shelves and cut down on wastage.”
