Artificial intelligence shopping assistants have taken the grocery industry by storm, but a quiet revolution is brewing among independent retailers.
According to Breez AI, regional and independent grocers are rapidly accelerating their adoption of the company’s grocery-backed AI platform. With a new wave of retailer adoption — including Brothers Market, Balls Food Stores, Price Chopper Enterprises, PFS Brands (operator of Moser’s Foods), Tietgens Food Stores and HAC Inc. (operating as Homeland) — and a massive rollout across 170 Harps Food Stores, Breez AI is on track to more than quadruple its active store count by August.
The company notes that loyalty shoppers using Breez AI spend an average of over 20% more than non-users, with year-over-year spending growing at nearly twice the rate.
These new deployments will launch on the recently released Breez AI 2.0 platform, which introduces hyperpersonalized features like wine and cocktail pairings, household and pantry modes and multilingual support. Independent grocers are launching this technology under their own distinct consumer-facing brands, allowing them to retain complete control over customer relationships, first-party data and unique merchandising strategies.
By dynamically generating custom recipes using a store’s exact, real-time inventory and live pricing, Breez AI says the platform is demystifying unfamiliar ingredients, driving cross-department sales through automated beverage pairings and giving local grocers a powerful tool to maximize fresh-aisle sales.
Breez AI founder and CEO Tal Zlotnitsky breaks down how independent grocers are putting this technology to work to change how we shop for fresh foods.
The Packer: Your announcement highlights that independent grocers want AI that helps shoppers ‘discover meals and build baskets.’ In the produce aisle, shoppers often get stuck in a rut buying the same three veggies every week, or they avoid unfamiliar items because they don’t know how to prep them. How does Breez AI 2.0 specifically encourage produce discovery and basket building?
Zlotnitsky: Breez AI 2.0 is purposefully designed to make produce discovery feel approachable rather than intimidating. Instead of shoppers defaulting to the same handful of vegetables each week, the assistant recommends complete meals that naturally introduce seasonal, unfamiliar or underutilized produce alongside ingredients they already enjoy. Also, if a consumer isn’t sure how to use kohlrabi or fennel, for example, they can simply ask the assistant for recipe ideas, preparation tips or substitutions.
The experience also becomes more personalized over time. Shoppers can set preferences such as vegetarian or vegan diets, tell the assistant to prioritize fresh ingredients, or even say they want to ‘try new vegetables.’ Breez AI remembers those preferences and incorporates them into future meal recommendations. By pairing new produce with familiar recipes, providing step-by-step cooking guidance and automatically building the rest of the shopping list, Breez AI helps shoppers discover more fresh foods while making it easy to add those items to their basket with confidence.
Independent grocers are protective of their merchandising strategies. Unlike the center store, produce pricing and inventory fluctuate rapidly based on seasonality and local sourcing. How does Breez AI allow independents to retain control over their unique produce merchandising strategy without a generic AI accidentally pushing out-of-stock items or mispricing seasonal local crops?
Every recipe generated by Breez AI is built from scratch using the retailer’s current inventory, so recommendations are always aligned with what the store actually has available. That means grocers aren’t limited to a fixed recipe database or predetermined ingredients. If grocers want to highlight seasonal produce, local fruits and vegetables or newly arrived items, Breez AI can instantly create recipes around those ingredients, giving grocers complete flexibility in how they merchandise their assortment.
Because recipes are generated dynamically, the platform can create meals from virtually any combination of ingredients, including fresh fruits and vegetables, making it an effective way to encourage produce discovery and increase basket size.
On pricing, Breez AI does not set or influence prices in any way. The platform reflects the prices established by the retailer, so shoppers always see and pay the store’s current price for every item.
With the rollout of Breez AI 2.0, you are introducing wine and cocktail pairings. How will this feature intersect with the fresh departments? For example, if a shopper asks for a cocktail pairing, will the AI proactively build a basket that includes fresh mint, limes or jalapeños from the produce aisle to drive cross-department sales?
Yes. One of the many advantages of Breez AI is that it thinks in terms of complete meal and beverage occasions rather than individual products. When a shopper selects a wine or cocktail pairing, Breez automatically includes any fresh ingredients needed to make the drink, whether that’s mint, limes, lemons, jalapeños, cucumbers or anything else for that matter.
Those ingredients are added directly to the shopping list alongside the rest of the meal, and the recipe includes step-by-step preparation instructions showing exactly how to use them. It’s a simple but effective way to encourage cross-department purchasing while helping shoppers create a complete experience, not just a recipe.
