Chelsea Morning Produce supplies restaurants, stores and event venues in Boston’s North Shore. Its founder, Wes Carr, has been working with his two daughters, Natasha and Felicia.
As part of the operation, the two daughters decided to identify areas of the business where technology might help them save money and free up staff time. In doing so, they identified logging customer orders as one of the processes most in need of an overhaul.
So the daughters turned to artificial intelligence to put this process on autopilot, reducing average order time from several minutes to a few seconds and giving them back precious time that can be spent mastering other areas of the business.
The Packer spoke with Choco AI and Chelsea Morning Produce to learn the processes used to expedite business.
Choco AI
The Packer: What specific challenges does Choco AI address within the food supply chain?
Georgie Thomas, managing director, head of U.S.: Choco AI is designed to automate and streamline the process of ordering food between restaurants and food suppliers, which is one of the most tedious and error-prone parts of the food supply chain. We essentially put that process on autopilot for distributors like Chelsea Morning Produce, with very little human intervention required.
When a customer calls, texts or emails in with their order, the technology automatically captures it, inputs it into the supplier’s back-end inventory system and creates a digital order. In doing so, it mitigates the need for a person to log every order that comes in and then manually enters them. This process is time-consuming, tedious for the person doing the data entry and can often lead to errors which cost the distributor money.
The AI is even smart enough to understand different accents and speaking styles, which is incredibly helpful in an industry in which there are many non-native English speakers. The AI also learns from customers over time, so that eventually when a regular calls in and says “Give me what I had last time,” it knows exactly what that means. On average, businesses who use Choco AI can process 100 times more orders without hiring any additional staff.
What experience has the company had with the produce industry?
We currently work with hundreds of produce distributors in the U.S. and Europe, which includes hundreds of produce distributors. In addition to Chelsea Morning Produce, some of the big names we work with include Krystal Produce and Produce Express, as well as a partnership with the International Fresh Produce Association.
What other applications of AI do you see for the produce industry?
There are huge opportunities for AI to be applied to client relationship management, where predictive analytics can identify when a customer should be ordering and prompt distributors to engage to ensure they’re not at risk of stopping ordering.
AI can be leveraged for demand forecasting. By looking at aggregated market-level data, distributors can understand product trends related to things like assortment, seasonality or cuisine type. AI can also be applied to marketing. For example, within Choco, suppliers will eventually be able to use generative AI to craft marketing and promotional messages that can help them drive sales.
Finally, there are several ways AI can impact how distributor sales reps can improve their day to day. From prospecting to insights, DSRs are able to gain valuable “superpowers” that make them into much more impactful sellers.
Chelsea Morning Produce
Tell me about your business.
Natasha Carr: Chelsea Morning Provisions was started in 1990 by our father, Wes. At the time, it was just him and his van providing produce, but over the last 35 years the company has grown significantly. We now have an amazing crew of employees and a full fleet of trucks that serve restaurants, grocery stores, variety stores and food pantries on Boston’s North Shore.
In addition to produce, we supply meat, dairy and nonperishables. It’s truly a family business, with Wes at the helm preparing my sister Felicia and me to be co-captains. He started taking both of us to the New England Produce Center when we were just toddlers, making sure we started learning the ropes at a young age. Although Felicia and I both went on to careers in different industries, we came back to the business six years ago, taking on full-time roles in pursuit of advancing operations.
What made you decide to adopt an AI tool, and what has your experience been like so far?
Taking orders from our restaurant and retail partners has always been one of the most time-consuming parts of our business. Orders often come in late at night, and reviewing and logging them is tedious work. It traditionally took all night and extended until the early hours of the morning.
With Choco AI, we’ve been able to cut down on the amount of time we spend on this, freeing us to focus on innovation and future growth. Whenever a new order comes in, the technology automatically captures it, inputs it into our back-end [enterprise resource planning] system and creates a digital order. What used to take hours and significant manual labor is now automated with the push of a button, taking us from clipboard, pen and paper to electronic automation.
The implementation was also very straightforward, with zero disruption to our customers’ processes. We collaborated closely with Choco’s product and order management team throughout the process, which took minimal time from start to finish. To a large extent, Choco AI mirrored the existing experience of our ERP interface, so the basic actions — adding or changing a product, adding a customer, changing quantity, etc. — already felt familiar. Over time, the AI learned from the changes we made so that the product could adapt accordingly.
