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Live Facial Recognition in Retail
Season 3, Ep. 8
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Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to explore how retailers around the world are deploying live facial recognition and what it takes to get it right when it comes to reducing losses while maintaining privacy.
They break the conversation into three areas.
Firstly, organisational readiness: why deploying facial recognition in retail is not about flicking a switch, and why it can take years to align policies, training, data protection and governance across as many as twelve different principles.
Secondly, the business case: one retailer reported a 20% reduction in shrink, but regulators are pushing back on some use cases and insisting the technology is proportionate to legitimate purposes such as violence reduction and in-store safety, not just financial ROI.
Thirdly, sustainable deployment: how retailers can maintain public trust through transparency, clear signage, and holding the line on minimum standards.
They also discuss watch list management, the risk of surveillance creep, the distinction between live and retrospective facial recognition, and why the parallels with early CCTV adoption suggest this technology will become the norm within a generation.
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11. Bananas
12:15||Season 3, Ep. 11Bananas are one of retail's best sellers. They are also one of its biggest waste lines.In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock talks to food waste expert Richard Thalemann about why so many bananas are thrown away, and what retailers can do about it.They unpack a recent ECR meeting and a visit to a ripening factory in Dublin: why 36% of banana waste comes down to fruit that is too yellow, how ripening upstream sets shelf life in store, and a simple box-packing "magic trick" that prevents damage but almost nobody uses. They also look at banana hammocks, the behavioural psychology of which bananas shoppers pick, and how single-price bananas may be creating more waste, not less.The takeaway: cutting banana waste means joining up handling, merchandising, pricing and new uses for imperfect fruit.More on reducing food waste in retailThe true cost of unsold food in retail66 practical ways to reduce retail food waste10. Winning Hearts and Minds
14:41||Season 3, Ep. 10The stores that waste the least food often have one thing in common: engaged colleagues.In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock talks to food waste expert Richard Thalemann about why engagement matters so much, and why it is so hard to sustain.They explore why people treat food differently at home and at work, the cognitive dissonance of caring about waste while being measured on sales, and why the emotional pull of charity donation rarely reaches the markdown gun. They also question league tables of donated meals, the risk of normalising surplus, and why champions of food waste fade like wallpaper unless the role keeps reinventing itself.The takeaway for retailers: make it easy, move the effort upstream, and measure what matters.More on reducing food waste in retailEngaging store associates to fight food wasteUsing store donations to reduce food waste9. The Egg Waste Problem
12:25||Season 3, Ep. 9Eggs don't look like a big loss problem. Look closely at the numbers and the picture changes.In this episode of Sell More Lose Less, Colin Peacock is joined by food waste expert Richard Thalemann to ask why so much egg waste goes unrecorded, and what retailers can do about it.They cover the rule that forces a whole box to be binned when a single egg breaks, the £2 million a year one retailer puts against it, and the merchandising habits, top shelves and floor-standing shippers, that quietly drive breakages. They also look at why markdowns and confusing date codes push shoppers to waste eggs that are still perfectly good, and why eggs past their sell by date can still be donated.The message for retailers is simple: measure the problem properly before you try to fix it.More on reducing food waste in retailThe true cost of unsold food in retailUsing store donations to reduce food waste7. Exception Based Reporting in Retail
16:54||Season 3, Ep. 7Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to discuss how Exception Based Reporting (EBR) is being used across retail to tackle staff dishonesty and drive cultural change.Drawing on a new ECR Retail Loss survey of businesses across 19 countries, they explore the four key data points retailers are using to reduce losses by flagging internal theft: voided items, refunds to the same card, manual discounts and staff loyalty card misuse.83% of respondents are already using EBR for some form of data analysis around employee theft.But the conversation goes beyond detection. One retailer showed how transparency and communication around EBR drove deterrence, reducing individual case values from four figures to two.They also discuss why video integration remains underused, why store managers need ownership of the data alongside central teams, and why EBR needs to extend beyond bricks-and-mortar cashiers to cover order pickers, delivery drivers and third-party fulfilment as fulfilment methods diversify.6. Forecourt Crime
11:18||Season 3, Ep. 6Professor Emmeline Taylor joins Colin Peacock to discuss the latest findings on forecourt crime rom ECR Retail Loss working group meetings.They explore why pay at pump is not the silver bullet for drive-offs and no means of payment, despite its appeal as a target-hardening measure.The conversation covers how one retailer combined ANPR technology with better signage and streamlined reporting to achieve a significant reduction in forecourt theft. But a growing problem is undermining ANPR: ghost plates. A recent report suggested one in 15 vehicles across England and Wales is now driving on false number plates. Emmeline and Colin discuss the governance risks for lone-working forecourt staff, the disparity in loss rates across retailers, and the value of law enforcement partnerships. They also consider how video analytics could help detect cloned plates in future, and why government action on ghost plates is needed before the problem becomes normalised.5. RFID Innovations in Retail
13:20||Season 3, Ep. 5Dr Susanne Guth-Orlowski of the RAIN Alliance joins Colin Peacock to reflect on the 2025 ECR RFID Innovation Summit in Düsseldorf, hosted by C&A.Around 70 retailers attended, from those with 20 years of RFID experience to those just getting started.The conversation covers what stood out: the diversity of RFID use cases across fashion, sports and home retail, the Qualcomm presentation on bringing RFID reading to mobile phones, and how the EU's digital product passport regulation is creating new opportunities for RAIN RFID as a data carrier. They also discuss the innovation showcase featuring startups working on overhead readers, sustainable tags and AI-driven data analysis, and look ahead to the 2026 summit in Madrid.4. Loss Prevention Consultancy
17:25||Season 3, Ep. 4Sophie Wong joins Colin Peacock to talk about leaving corporate life at Coles to launch her own retail loss prevention consultancy, Positively Powered.She shares the good, the bad, and the ugly of going it alone: from the freedom to think creatively and work across different retail organisations, to the reality of building a business from scratch without a steady paycheck.Sophie and Colin discuss why loss is everyone's responsibility, why it belongs on the C-suite agenda, and why loss prevention teams cannot solve complex shrink problems without cross-functional support. Sophie also offers practical advice for anyone considering a similar move, covering financial planning, defining a unique selling proposition, and the importance of constantly learning.3. Returns Fraud
18:44||Season 3, Ep. 3Professor Michael Townsley and Dr Andrew Childs join Colin Peacock to discuss new ECR Retail Loss research into returns fraud and abuse.Drawing on a survey of nearly 6,000 consumers across four countries and an investigation into dark web fraud communities, they reveal how widespread problematic return behaviours really are, why most offenders experience no friction at all, and the three practical steps every retailer should take now. Topics include wardrobing, Did Not Arrive claims, social engineering of team members, crime scripts, and why environmental messaging may work better than punitive measures.