Afresh Technologies, the world’s leading fresh food technology company, and Albertsons Companies (NYSE: ACI) announced today the completion of an enterprise rollout of the Afresh predictive ordering and inventory management platform. The system was implemented in more than 2,200 Albertsons Cos. banner stores including Safeway, Jewel-Osco, Shaw’s, Vons and ACME. The new platform allows store teams to better order and plan fresh produce inventory, reducing food waste and achieving superior freshness in their stores.
The Afresh platform also provides department managers with easy-to-use ordering tools that leverage real-time insights. While it could typically take years to implement this type of large-scale enterprise software in the grocery industry, Afresh was able to complete the roll out of its system to Albertsons Cos. banner stores within seven months.
“Supply chain and store technology implementations typically require a multi-year transformation and radical overhauls,” said Afresh CEO and co-founder Matt Schwartz. “Afresh and Albertsons Cos. have partnered to complete the fastest in-store technology rollout in Albertsons Cos.’ history and did so across thousands of stores in just months, helping Albertsons Cos.’ family of stores realize the transformational value in their fresh produce departments now; not years down the line.”
“Driving sustainability practices across Albertsons Cos. is essential to our business and the communities we serve,” said Suzanne Long, Chief Sustainability and Transformation Officer at Albertsons Cos. “Our partnership with Afresh helps us improve ordering and better manage our inventory of fresh fruits and vegetables so our customers have access to fresher products, and we’re able to make meaningful progress toward achieving our goal to have zero food waste going to landfill by 2030.”
One major difference between fresh grocery and other departments is that fresh food is highly dynamic. As a result, fresh data is often imperfect. While competing solutions rely on near-perfect data, Afresh recognizes the unique challenges of fresh food and is built to produce results despite hard-to-predict and error-prone data. All these factors enable Afresh to roll out in months instead of years.
“What ultimately made this rollout so successful is a strong partnership with the Albertsons Cos. team and their willingness to embrace innovation and be a real partner in technology,” said Schwartz. “Afresh is proud to serve Albertsons Cos., and we look forward to creating real, long-term impact for their fresh product offerings.”
