Every fresh-goods operation has a bin moment: someone finds the yoghurt, the cream, the case of juice a day past its date, and it goes in the bin with a shrug. The shrug is the problem. By the time stock expires, the decision that wasted it is weeks old. It was made when the delivery was booked in without a date, or when the new case was shelved in front of the old one.
Expiry isn't a cleaning task. It's a countdown that starts at receiving, and everything that follows is either managing it or ignoring it.
First expiring, first out
Most teams think they run first-in-first-out. Shelves run whatever-is-nearest-first. The fix is to track the date, not the arrival: every batch gets its expiry recorded at receiving, and the system always points at the batch that dies first. That's first-expiring-first-out, and it beats FIFO whenever suppliers ship out of order, which is often.
Recording the date costs seconds at the door. Not recording it means the only inventory of your expiry risk is a staff member's memory of what's at the back of the fridge.
The discount window
Between full price and the bin there's a window where the stock still has value, and most teams miss it because nothing tells them it's open. The rule of thumb: act at roughly seventy percent of shelf life.
- Short-dated list every morning: everything expiring within its window, sorted by value at risk, not by date.
- Markdown beats bin: thirty percent off sells cream that full price won't, and recovers cost even when it gives up margin.
- Move it before you mark it down: the batch dying in your quiet location may sell at full price in your busy one.
- Stop reordering what you keep binning. The discount list is your buying report wearing a disguise.
Count the bin like it's revenue
Whatever still hits the bin, record it with a reason: expired, damaged, prepared-and-unsold. A month of honest waste entries is the most persuasive purchasing document you'll ever produce: it names the products, the quantities and the money, and it usually points at two or three order lines that have been too big since the day someone set them. Waste you can see gets smaller. Waste you shrug at stays exactly where it is.
Stocked is the system these notes are written from. Start free or read more from the blog.