More than 300 stores and logistics sites, 2 to 5 kg of food waste a week each. How a non-food retailer met the French sorting rules without adding a single task to its sales teams.
In France, since 1 January 2024, separation at source of food waste has applied to every producer of food waste, including companies in the non-food sector.
Each store produces 2 to 5 kg of food waste a week, mostly from the teams' lunch breaks: leftovers, peelings, coffee grounds, bread. Little at the scale of one site, considerable at the scale of the network.
Between 35 and 80 staff per site, focused on selling rather than on waste management. Any solution requiring a trained champion and weekly monitoring was ruled out from the start.
Being able to show at any moment that the food waste is sorted and put to use. Without traceability, compliance does not survive an inspection.
On small volumes, collection costs far more than treatment. Multiplied by 300 sites, the frequency of visits becomes the biggest single item in the disposal cost.
What was needed, then, was a solution that is simple, uniform, traceable, cheap, and compatible with the way the stores already work.
A contractor comes every week to swap a full bin for an empty one. Nothing for the teams to do, and monitoring supplied by the contractor. But the food waste sits indoors for several days, and above all: 52 trips a year for a few kilos, which means a very high cost per kilo and a carbon footprint out of all proportion.
Relevant above 100 kg a week, not for a non-food store.
The cheapest option to buy, and the greenest on paper. But it needs a champion on each site, regular mixing and careful dosing of bulking material; badly run, it produces odours and pests. The compost it makes has to be spread on site.
Workable on a motivated site, unmanageable across a network of 300.
The food waste is stabilised on site in a closed composter, with no odour and no nuisance, then collected only once or twice a year. The teams empty a caddy, nothing more. In France, each collection issued a certificate that served as proof.
The best of both worlds for volumes below 60 kg a week.
Pre-composting is the first stage of composting, carried out directly on site, without taking the process all the way to standard-grade compost. The food waste is stabilised, free of odour and nuisance, and stored in good conditions until it is collected.
Cutting the frequency of visits cuts the cost, but also the carbon. Replacing the usual 52 trips a year with 1 or 2 collections divides the transport footprint by the same factor. For a multi-site retailer with low volumes, that is the decisive lever.
In France it was delivered and set down at the spot each store chose, depending on its layout. No foundation, no connection: it consumes nothing.
Simple visuals guide the teams, especially in the break room, where the volumes actually arise.
Leftovers, peelings, coffee grounds: the caddy stays in the break room, like one more bin.
Every 2 or 3 days they tip the caddy into the composter. That is the only recurring task asked of the site.
After a year or two depending on the model, the material left for a local composting site and became a fertiliser. A certificate was issued: under French rules, that was the regulatory proof.
For a network like ours, with more than 300 stores, it was important to keep the operational load on the store teams to a minimum. The Easy To Compost solution answered that, while keeping nuisances under control: no odours, no fruit flies, no rodents. The digital monitoring also lets us guarantee regulatory traceability. By dividing the number of collections by 52, we cut our logistics costs and our carbon impact.
Compost that is run properly does not smell. It is the wrong conditions, not composting itself, that cause the problem: material that is too wet, too compacted, never mixed. The oxygen disappears, fermentation sets in, and with it ammonia and sulphur.
The mixing screw is worked by hand, with no force and no tool. The material stays oxygenated, so it composts aerobically: no pocket of fermentation, no bad smell.
Food waste is 70 to 90% water. Our bulking recipe absorbs that excess moisture, cancels odour build-up in hot weather and cold, and gives the micro-organisms something to grow on. It is delivered with the composter.
Unlike plastic or wooden bins, the vessel is 2 mm steel and completely closed: no rodent gets in, no odour gets out, no fruit fly lays its eggs inside.
One useful detail: in summer, fruit flies lay their eggs on the peelings before these even reach the composter. So there can be some from the outset, and nothing can prevent it. A curative treatment approved for organic farming stops the laying and kills the adults within a few hours.
Here is what a store of that profile comes to on our current price list. The figures come out of the calculator, exactly as your online quote does.
104 to 260 kg of food waste a year
A long way from the 1,500 kg a composter can take: one is enough, and it fills up slowly.
Total89 to 99 € excl. VAT/month
Per store, with a 48-month term if you rent. For a network, a single contract and the same terms everywhere.
Price up my own network
PeazyThe quote is produced online, price included, or by talking it through with us.