Robyn Naisbitt

Asda is the first UK supermarket to prove savings for customers, as two million reduce food waste at home following a campaign with the University of Leeds

Asda has become the first UK supermarket chain to confirm how much customers have saved after launching a campaign to tackle food waste.

Working in partnership with the University of Leeds and researchers within the School of Earth and Environment, the business has revealed that customer bank balances were, on average, £57 better off a year as they committed to cutting food waste in their own homes.

Announced at a parliamentary reception, hosted by MP Hilary Benn, Asda explained that the positive customer behaviour change was driven by a series of actions developed in-line with its customer insight, combined with research conducted by the University of Leeds.

The multi-channel campaign focused on providing customers with advice on everything from food storage and labelling, to creative recipe inspiration for leftovers. Meanwhile, in-store events encouraged customers to pledge to make changes in their own homes.

Since the launch:

· 81% of customers said they planned to follow the advice provided

· Two million customers are making changes in their homes as a result of the campaign

· Customers have saved £57 by keeping these changes in their home

Asda’s Chief Customer Officer, Andy Murray, said: “As a major food retailer, we have a responsibility and the ability to bring about large scale change when it comes to tackling food waste. By partnering with the University of Leeds, the team has been able to take our insight and really explore this area, meaning that we now have a greater understanding of customer attitude and behaviour, helping shape the way we communicate with our customers and ultimately the way we do business.

“However, our commitment to food waste doesn’t end here. While helping our customers live more sustainably is a step in the right direction, we understand the importance of addressing this issue throughout our entire supply chain. This is just one of many initiatives we are undertaking as we aim to tackle the issue in collaboration with everyone from our customers and suppliers, to our colleagues’ in-store.”

The findings were revealed in front of an audience of suppliers, food waste experts, and stakeholders, and featured guest speakers including Director of WRAP, Richard Swannell and University of Leeds Professor, William Young.

Dr Richard Swannell, Director, WRAP, said: “Food waste is one of the biggest challenges of our time, it’s bad for the environment, economy and to society as a whole. WRAP has a track record of reducing waste and at the heart of this work is collective action, which is pivotal to this success.

“We therefore welcome Asda’s work with the University of Leeds to help customers waste less and save money, and encourage more of this type of work to ensure food waste reduction continues.”

University of Leeds Professor and Consumer Data Research Centre Co-I, William Young, said: “Working with a large scale retailer like Asda, and its millions of customers, has been an invaluable experience. Not only have we come away with real, measurable insight from shoppers but we’ve also seen the direct correlation between our recommended actions and tangible behavioural change. While our formal partnership is coming to a close, the legacy of this project will certainly live on in the benefits passed to customers and of course the environment.”

The results of the partnership between Asda and the University of Leeds coincides with the publication of Asda’s 2016 Green Britain Index – a study conducted by the supermarket to understand the views of 20,000 customers from its ‘Everyday Experts’ panel.

The research, which focused on the importance of matters surrounding food waste and sustainability, found that 93% of Asda customers care about ‘being green’. Furthermore, 85% said they looked to retailers to help them reduce food waste at home, while 72% admitted they had stopped buying a product altogether because they found it would often go to waste.

A copy of the 2016 Green Britain Index can be found here: sustainability.asda.com

Our popular interactive visual maps the most popular employment for each of the 220000 statistical small areas* within the UK.

Put together by our senior research associate Oliver O’Brien, this map re-uses the “top result” technique utilised in all other CDRC Maps.

Explore it yourself – Top jobs across the UK.

For background information on the map, read Oliver O’Brien’s blog post. 

We’d be interested to hear your feedback, connect with us on twitter:@cdrc_uk or facebook.com/cdrcuk. Alternatively, email: info@cdrc.ac.uk.

* Known as Output Areas in Great Britain and Small Areas in Northern Ireland.

We welcomed the first cohort of CDRC Interns earlier this month, we met with them on their first day to find out all about them and will be providing regular updates on each of their internships as they progress.

Dr Ilan Fridman Rojas

Education: University of Manchester (MPhys Physics), Durham University (PhD Theoretical Particle Physics)

How I became interested in data: Towards the end of my PhD I attended the Science 2 Data Science (S2DS) workshop and this piqued my interest in data analysis and machine learning algorithms.

What I hope to get out of the internship: More experience and expertise, and interesting new data sets to work with.

Where I hope to be in 3 years: Continuing to do research at increasingly higher levels into applying established data analysis methods to new data sets, or new methods to both old and new data sets, with an outcome which either improves the method or provides new insights from the data.

Rebecca Atkinson

Education: I have just finished my 3^rd year of a 4 year integrated masters studying maths and physics at Durham University.

How I became interested in data: Last year I did an internship in industry at a company that provides personal credit to the non-standard market. I became aware there that there is a growing interest within businesses in the masses of data that is produced about everyone and its power to help make business decisions and inform businesses of customer trends. I found this very interesting and did some reading about machine learning and its potential use in attempting to analyse the huge volumes of data produced in our information age.

What I hope to get of the internship: I hope to gain some experience and understanding of some machine learning techniques and their advantages and disadvantages when compared to more traditional methods of data analysis. I hope to gain experience working in an academic team and contributing to a research paper and I hope to discover whether this is the area I would like to do a PhD in.

Where I hope to be in three years: In three years’ time I hope to be doing a PhD potentially on a data related project.

 

Samuel Sheen

Education: I’ve just completed an Integrated Masters in Maths at the University of Leeds.

How I became interested in data:    I became interested in data through studying for my integrated masters degree in mathematics at the University of Leeds. I specialized in statistics modules and particularly enjoyed studying linear regression, generalized linear models, Time Series etc. I found the practical components to these modules really interesting and was able to apply the techniques studied in these modules  to real data sets.

What I hope to get out of this Internship: I hope to gain experience in working with Big Data, which is something I have been interested in for a while. I also hope to gain skills in machine learning and further develop my knowledge and understanding of statistics. These are all relevant skills which will help me with my PhD starting later this year.

Where I hope to be in three years time: In three years time I hope to be coming towards the end of my PhD project (titled Extracting knowledge from Longitudinal Data.) Following the PhD, I have not yet decided whether I would like to pursue a career in academia or in industry (e.g as a data scientist).

 

Dr Jen-Hsien (Lucas)

Education: I have just completed a PhD in Marketing at Leeds University Business School

How I became interested in data: As a consumer behaviour researcher, I am highly interested in the behavioural data and am eager to learn the analytic skills to get consumer insights.

What I hope to get out of the internship: I am aiming to learn the basic analytic skills for Big Data during the internship as well as advanced data mining and screening skills for big data sets.

Where I hope to be in three years: I aim to be an experienced consumer behaviour researcher either in the academia or in the industry.

 

We currently have a number of internship opportunities available, find out more.

 

We are seeking to appoint a talented and highly motivated Business Development Manager to join the Consumer Data Research Centre, to be based at the Leeds Institute for Data Analytics.

You will provide a vital bridge between the Centre and the business sector, maintaining relationships with data providers and encouraging new data partners to work with the Centre. In this capacity, you will carry significant responsibility for building the Centre’s business and data portfolio upon which the Centre’s core services depend. You will also be responsible for working alongside professional service teams at the University of Leeds to articulate and execute the legal agreements and data sharing agreements which underpin consumer data operations.

You will work directly with the Centre’s Director and Deputy Director on implementing the Centre’s data acquisition strategy and work closely with the Centre’s Public Engagement and Communications Officer to ensure that the Centre achieves impact.

You will be educated to degree level and have experience in business engagement, preferably working with commercial organisations. You will have excellent communication and negotiation skills and be comfortable working with minimal supervision and as a part of a team. A knowledge of the Big Data agenda and its impact on organisations in commerce and the public sector, as well as academia, would be considered desirable.

For further information please visit the vacancy page.

The Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) in collaboration with the Local Data Company (LDC), hosted the launch event for the SmartStreetSensor project at University College London (UCL) on 30 June 2016.

The SmartStreetSensor project, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), is the most comprehensive study of footfall patterns across Great Britain to date. Some 1,000 sensors will now measure live footfall in 81 towns and cities across the UK. In the pipeline for 18 months, the launch garnered significant publicity across social and traditional media channels and was therefore launched amidst a lot of anticipation, with a select number of attendees from across the retail, academic and media sectors.

The event kicked off with an introduction to the CDRC by our Director, Prof Paul Longley, who asked delegates to think about what is happening across our towns and cities and why this now forms a crucial part of the big data debate. Matthew Hopkinson, Director of the LDC, then discussed how the project aims to have “real people delivering real data”, which was crucial to conducting an evidence based analysis of footfall across Britain.

Our researchers Jens Kandt and Roberto Murcio, along with Phd student Bala Soundararaj, gave the final presentation, discussing ways in which they intend to conduct the research and identifying the types of challenges a project of this nature may pose, explaining how they aim to overcome these.

The closing session involved a spirited question and answer session; attendees were particularly keen to learn about the nuances of the project, including who stands to benefit from the types of data generated.

For a full account of the project, how it will work and why we are pursuing it – access our joint press release.

 

 

 

The second installment of our newsletter is now available. Read on for updates on our latest datasets, maps, research, events and plenty more.

To access the newsletter.

 

The purpose of this survey is to gain a better understanding of how users are utilising our research, datastore and mapping portal in their own area of work, to ascertain the types of outputs these are generating and determine how the service can be improved. The results from this survey will also be used for reporting purposes and to support the continuation of the service.

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On 30 June 2016 we will officially launch the SmartStreetSensor Project in a partnership with the Local Data Company and University College London (UCL), with funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

The SmartStreetSensor Project is the most comprehensive study of High Street footfall patterns across Great Britain to date. It will allow us to understand how our high streets are used, how they are changing and what actually impacts footfall patterns.

We are launching this initiative to build on our detailed knowledge of how retail places are changing by combining this with footfall traffic patterns. By doing this, it will provide the most accurate picture of the relationship between places and people and what determines their success. This is the holy grail for retailers and landlords alike.

Official press release due shortly. For further enquiries contact marketing@localdatacompany.com or info@cdrc.ac.uk.

 

A case study of our Output Area Classification Data has featured in a report by The Digital Preservation Coalition (DPC). Titled ‘Preserving Transactional Data’ the reports are commissioned after consultation among DPC members about shared priorities and challenges in digital preservation, are commissioned from experts and are thoroughly scrutinized by peers before being released. The authors are asked to provide reports that are informed, current, concise and balanced and that lower the barriers to participation in digital preservation.

The reports are a distinctive and lasting contribution to the dissemination of good practice in digital preservation.  The Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC) inputs were provided by our Project Manager, Sarah Sheppard, and Deputy Director, Alex Singleton.

The report is published by the DPC in association with Charles Beagrie Ltd. Neil Beagrie, Director of Consultancy at Charles Beagrie Ltd, was commissioned to act as principal investigator for, and managing editor of, this Series in 2011. He has been further supported by an Editorial Board drawn from DPC members and peer reviewers who comment on text prior to release: William Kilbride (Chair), Janet Delve (University of Portsmouth), Marc Fresko (Inforesight), Sarah Higgins (University of Aberystwyth), Tim Keefe (Trinity College Dublin), and Dave Thompson (Wellcome Library).

To access the full report.