Bakery’s RFID Pivot: Faster Counts, Fresher Shelves, Less Waste

Walk past the warm glow of a grocery bakery and you’re not just smelling bread—you’re sensing the store’s promise of freshness. We dig into why that promise is so hard to keep with manual counts, perishable windows, and production guesswork that swing between empty shelves and costly waste. Then we pull the thread on a simple shift with outsized impact: swapping standard price stickers for RFID‑enabled labels to get real‑time, item‑level visibility without adding friction to the floor.

We share how handheld scans turn hours of counting into minutes, freeing associates to serve people instead of paper. With clearer data, teams align bake schedules to actual demand, reduce shrink by up to 35%, and protect margins. We also unpack the high‑stakes moment of recalls, where RFID helps pinpoint and pull only affected items up to 95% faster, avoiding blanket removals and preserving customer trust. The ROI story is compelling—often under six months—making bakery the ideal pilot before expanding into deli, meat, and produce.

Along the way, we spotlight industry momentum, including major grocers moving first in bakery to build the case for digitizing fresh. The takeaway is bigger than tech: it’s about delivering freshness, reducing waste, and earning loyalty where it matters most—at the shelf. If you’re weighing where to start with store digitization, this is the proof point you can bring to your next ops meeting. Subscribe, share with your team, and drop a review to tell us where you’d pilot RFID next.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_00 (00:07):
Well, hello everyone.
Welcome to Scott's Thoughts.
I'm Scott Benedict.
You know, when you walk into agrocery store, one of the first
things that you typically noticeis the bakery section.
Fresh bread, pastries, cakes notonly drive impulse purchases,
but they also shape a shopper'sperspective of freshness that

(00:30):
extends across the whole store.
But there is a challenge.
Bakeries inherently arelabor-intensive and dependent
upon manual inventory counts,and obviously both the
components and the finishedgoods are highly perishable.
Employees can end up spendingtwo to three hours every day

(00:51):
counting and rotating product.
And even then, those counts mayonly be about 55 to 65%
accurate.
That leads to the worst possibleoutcome, either empty shelves on
one side or costly waste andoverproduction on the other
side.
This is where RFID technologythat I've been talking about a

(01:15):
little bit recently really isbecoming a game changer in our
industry.
There's a new white paper outfrom the team at Avery Denison
that I've been reading recentlythat highlights the fact that
the bakery department really isthe sweet spot, if you will,
improving the value of RFIDtechnology in grocery.
By replacing standard pricelabels with RFID-enabled labels,

(01:40):
grocers can gain real-timeitem-level visibility without it
adding uh unnecessary complexityto their workflows.
And the neat thing is that theimpact is just about immediate.
Inventory counts that once tookhours can be done in a matter of
minutes, nearly a 95% reductionin the time it takes to perform

(02:03):
that very simple uh task.
That frees associates to focuson customers and customer
service instead of clipboardsand taking counts of their of
their inventory.
It also means fresher productson the shelf, better alignment
between production and demand,uh, and up to 35% less food

(02:26):
waste, which is a huge componentof profitability in that area.
And when recalls occur, RFIDenables them to be executed up
to 95% faster, targeting onlythose affected items and
protecting both the consumer andthe brand and the retailer's
reputation.

(02:47):
The payoff is quick.
Most grocers see a return oninvestment in less than six
months.
And it's no surprise thatKroger, one of the largest
grocers in the U.S., haspartnered recently in a
redemption.
This was the topic of this whitepaper I was reading, to bring
RFID into their bakeries as afirst step towards digitizing

(03:07):
all of their fresh categories.
For me, bakery is a powerfulreminder that transformation
normally starts small, but byproving the value of high
visibility, high-wastedepartments like bakery, grocers
can build the case to expandRFID across the store, unlocking

(03:29):
efficiency, sustainability, andperhaps most importantly,
customer trust at scale.
The lesson for retailers ispretty clear.
RFID is no longer just aboutsupply chain efficiency,
although it is about that.
It's also about deliveringfreshness, reducing waste, and
building loyalty with customerswhere it matters most.

(03:53):
The technology is here.
It feels like the ROI isincreasingly proven, and leaders
are really moving fast in thisarea of the business.
The only question is when willother retailers also get on
board and start to use thistechnology for the benefit of
their business and perhaps mostimportantly for their customers?

(04:14):
That's what I've been thinkingabout.
I'm Scott Benedict.