Surplus food grocery chain Company Shop has rolled out electronic shelf labels (ESLs) to its entire UK store estate.

The new initiative has been developed with in-store automation solutions provider Pricer, and is already live in Company Shop’s St Helens and Long Eaton stores.

The retailer is set to complete a roll-out across all of its 13 stores by the end of the month, with Company Shop partnering with Renovotec on the in-store installations.

The surplus supermarket said the launch was aimed at optimising in-store operations, improving labour productivity, and using dynamic pricing to crack down on food waste.

The system delivers real-time pricing updates to the shelf edge throughout the day, cutting down on the need for store colleagues to manually check or update prices, and allowing for more time for customer service tasks.

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Company Shop said the technology is also designed to improve pricing accuracy, especially for short-shelf life surplus goods, which in turn reduces waste.

Company Shop head of retail Gemma Edlin said: “Introducing Pricer’s ESLs has been a game-changer – not just for our store colleagues, who have seen labour productivity boosted and their time freed to focus on delivering customer service, but especially for our members.

“Our vision is to create a world where no surplus products go to waste, so with real-time and to-the-second accurate pricing via the ESLs, our members know they’ll always be getting the very best price on offer, meaning more sell-through and less waste.”

In recent years, many UK grocery retailers have switched from paper pricing tags to ESLs in a bid to bolster store operations, including Co-op, Asda and Lidl.

Last March, Company Shop hit a milestone through its partnership with discounter Aldi, marking the donation of 2.5m meals from its regional distribution centres across the UK.