Supermarket Perimeter - January 2023 - 54

Technology: Inventory and waste management
" It means fewer out-of-stocks, faster turns, and we believe it's driving
a better fresh experience. "
Retailers often have the mindset, Fenner said, that they can reduce
shrink only by reducing inventory. With Afresh, they can reduce shrink
and keep inventories full to prevent sales losses, he said.
Retailers have also told Afresh that they like how intuitive and easy it
is to use, Fenner said. That's crucial in today's tight labor environment,
where skilled workers are hard to find and keep.
Any device, anywhere
Toronto-based Invafresh, whose technologies are currently being used
in more than 25,000 grocery stores in 15 countries, will have several
areas of focus in 2023, said Stephen Midgley, the company's vice
president of marketing.
At the top of the list is the continued expansion of the functionality
and usability of its Fresh Retail Platform. That includes continuing
enhancements to its cloud-native user interface that allows grocery
retailers to use any device, anywhere, Midgley said.
" We'll also continue expanding our prescriptive analytics capabilities
" It's the natural progression of our product, " Fenner said of the
expansion into other perimeter departments. " The vision of our
company has always been to build it for the entire fresh operation. "
Afresh's customers and future customers have told the company they
like the fact that Afresh built its platform exclusively for fresh, Fenner said.
Other inventory management systems are built on the foundations of the
center-store platforms that preceded them, in many cases by decades.
When the first inventory management software rolled out in the
1980s, fresh didn't make up as a high percentage of sales as it does now,
Fenner said. Also, it was much easier to manage center-store items than
perishables.
It's only been in recent years that technology breakthroughs have
made fresh-centric systems feasible. That's dovetailed beautifully with
higher demand for fresh products and retailers' putting more emphasis
on it, Fenner said.
" For the first time, grocers have a really innovative purpose-built
technology that's well-suited for fresh departments. The fresh category
is a strategic differentiator for retailers, but the tech was all designed for
non-fresh categories. So we've seen a historical underserving of these
departments. "
Afresh's platform typically delivers at least 25% shrink reduction for
its retail customers, Fenner said. Other platforms, he said, claim those
kind of numbers, but their data is often cherry-picked and limited to a
narrow window of time. Customers like that Afresh's data covers the
whole department over a significant period of time, he said.
In addition to that 25% number, which can make a huge difference
for retailers working on tiny margins and in stiff competition with other
players in their markets, Afresh's platform also can lead to " significant
sales increases " in fresh departments where it's been implemented,
Fenner said. Stores that use Afresh typically see a 2-4% increase in topline
revenue growth and have a 40% or more increase to their produce
operating margin.
54 - JANUARY 2023
that empower grocery retailers with enterprise reporting and actionable
insights, " he added. " As we continue to place importance on the role our
technology plays in helping our customers meet their environmental,
social, and governance (ESG) targets, having access to the data provided
by our built-in analytics will play a critical role in helping grocery
retailers achieve ESG goals, such as reducing food waste. "
Retailers are definitely becoming more aware of the necessity of
services that Invafresh and other companies provide, Midgley said.
Coming out of the pandemic, he said, more and more supermarkets
have embraced technology to deal with macrotrends such as inflation,
labor shortages, and food waste.
In addition, regulatory changes to Section 204(d) of the Food
Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) are also causing retailers to look for
traceability and recipe management solutions to ensure compliance.
" Beyond the obvious financial benefits, there's an increased global
awareness of the need for sustainability and the corporate responsibility
that goes with it, " Midgley said. " Food waste is a major source of shrink,
especially for grocery retailers who struggle to accurately predict
demand for perishable items. "
According to a recent Invafresh survey of senior grocery executives,
reducing food waste is a high priority for grocery retailers, with 27% of
retailers saying that waste is one of the biggest challenges technologies
can solve in the food industry.
One happy customer is Schenectady, N.Y.-based Price Chopper. With
the help of the Invafresh's Fresh Retail Platform, Price Chopper prevents
20 tons of fresh food from being wasted each week and is projected to
prevent more than 3,000 tons of food waste over the next three years
across its 131 stores in the northeastern United States.
" Invafresh has helped Price Chopper to produce the correct amounts
of product to meet our customer demand while reducing our exposure
to excess shrink, " said Patrick Iannotti, the chain's director of retail
operations. " We are working on enhancements with Invafresh that
will further our effort in exceeding our customer's expectations for
delivering fresh products while limiting the spoilage that ends up in the
landfill. "
supermarketperimeter.com
Invafresh
Inventory
management
software helps
guarantee that enough,
but not too much,
product is in cases
and on shelves at
the right times.
http://www.supermarketperimeter.com
Supermarket Perimeter - January 2023

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