Markdowns help retailers clear stock, but rarely help them learn. In this session, Stuart Kinghorn, Head of Food Operations & Transformation for Marks & Spencer (M&S), shared how the retailer was moving from transactional, end-of-life price drops to an integrated waste ecosystem, linking stock-exit management, fresh production planning and store execution into one loop.
The session covered the operating model change (who decides and when), the data needed for inventory truth (what’s really on hand, not just on paper), and the playbook for directed actions in stores (what to do today, not ‘someday’).
Stuart explained how M&S was customising the timing and depth of markdowns by each store, tightening freshness targets, and improving sell-through, reducing shrink and saving hours, while keeping the shopper experience “in stock, fresh, priced right.” The result: less waste as a by-product and more margin as the outcome.
Stuart spoke initially about finding the right vendors to work with.
“There is a real difference between vendors who have really invested time and energy into really understanding the challenges that modern retailers face and building solutions for them. There are plenty of vendors out there offering ‘cookie-cutter’ products. We spend a lot of time with new vendors, and we expect them to invest time in our business.”
M&S is working with Retail Insight, a solutions-based company using leading-edge technology fuelled by pragmatic mathematics and subject matter expertise. Their systems aim is to boost sales, cut losses and sharpen retail efficiency.
“We chose to partner with Retail Insight to reduce food waste and improve profitability.”
Stuart acknowledges there was too much ambiguity from store managers and teams on what they could mark down and what couldn’t be marked down. We found markdowns varied across stores, differing depths of markdowns at different times.
“Previously, markdowns were managed de-centrally, store-by-store. Profitability rested with store managers, and that ability to balance store mark downs, clearance inventory and protecting margins correlated with how experienced they [store managers] were and how focussed they were on profitability.”
Retail Insights share insights and data analytics to help grocers remove friction and complexity for stores.
“We now use Retail Insights data to inform stores when to mark down, which products to mark down, at what time, how much to mark down and where they should start – category by category”.
“Today, we now know the best time to mark down, by how much, and those times and proportions of discounts differ across our stores and regions”.
“Taking the mark down decisions away from individual stores, centralising it and using data analytics, we have improved mark down efficiencies. This has led to fewer mark downs, a greater opportunity to sell through at full price before mark downs are enacted, and that leads to better profitability.”
In the year ending 29th March 2025, M&S Adjusted Profit Before Tax (APBT) was £875.5 million, up 22.2% from £716.4 million in 2023/24.
“Our ‘date codes’ are shorter than our competitors. While that creates risk, it is, importantly, our competitive advantage. For example, in cut flowers, our ‘best before’ is only 7 days. We want our customers to get the maximum benefit, life and freshness from our products.”
“Without a centralised mark down ecosystem, we couldn’t balance our inventory, ordering and fresh promises. To run tight dates requires advanced analytics.”
Retail Insight adapts and iterates their waste analytic measures when stores are being refurbished, closing or being retrofitted – changes that can create new waste challenges.
Where does Stuart see the future of store operations for M&S?
“Outsourcing to experts, particularly around data insights and analytics, logistics, ordering or waste… and then modernise the rest in house.”
Finally, Stuart was asked about how AI was being used to help store managers run supermarkets.
“We are using AI more and more across the business. Particularly to help store managers have difficult conversations and help improve team member performance.”
Stuart concluded by saying, “Before we work with vendors and solutions providers, before we implement anything, we ask: does it meet our strategy? Will it fix the problems? We seek proof of concept before we do anything that will impact on stores.”
