Some losses never appear on an invoice. Stock that quietly ages past its date in the back of the warehouse is one of them — you paid for it, and now you pay again to throw it away.
The scale of waste in Malaysia is staggering: the country discards around 17,000 tonnes of food every day, and roughly a quarter of it is still edible. For any business handling perishables — food and beverage, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics — expiry is a direct hit to margin.
The waste you don't see on an invoice
Waste-management authority SWCorp estimates Malaysians throw away about 17,000 tonnes of food daily, of which roughly 24% is still good to eat. While that figure spans households and businesses, it reflects a national habit that hits any operation storing dated goods.
Every expired pallet is stock you bought, stored, and now must dispose of — a triple cost.
Why manual FIFO fails
“First in, first out” is easy to say and hard to enforce by hand. Pickers naturally grab whatever is nearest or easiest to reach — often the newest stock — and the older batches sink to the back, unseen, until they're worthless.
How automated FIFO works
When every receipt is dated in the system, the software simply directs the picker to the oldest batch first, and flags items approaching expiry before they turn into write-offs.
Pair that with demand forecasting so you don't over-order perishables in the first place, and waste drops on both ends.
How Stratevo helps
Stratevo Warehouse stamps every receipt with a FIFO date and enforces oldest-first retrieval automatically, while ML forecasting helps you order the right quantity of short-life stock.
Sources
- 1. Malaysia throws away 17,000 tonnes of food daily — The Malaysian Reserve
- 2. Malaysians dispose enough edible food to feed an estimated 2 million people every day — The Rakyat Post
Figures are drawn from the cited public research and industry studies and are provided for general guidance. Results vary by operation — we measure your own baseline with you.