Afresh builds on fresh produce solutions, expands fresh footprint

Afresh Technologies, a San Francisco-based fresh food technology company, has expanded its flagship, built-for-fresh solution from produce into other fresh departments including meat, seafood, deli and foodservice, according to a news release.

The artificial intelligence-powered platform is designed to optimize store ordering and operations by providing intelligent recommendations and streamlined ordering and inventory workflows.

To date, Afresh customers have seen “transformational benefits” in their produce departments, including an average 3% sales lift and 25% shrink reduction — which translates to a collective 31 million pounds of food waste prevented so far, the company says.

Current customers including Cub Foods, Fresh Thyme Market and Heinen’s have signed on for the expansion of Afresh into other core fresh departments, the release said.

“We are thrilled to be launching our meat, seafood, deli and foodservice products this year,” Matt Schwartz, CEO and co-founder of Afresh, said in the release. “After proving our ability to add value in thousands of stores in produce, we have been overwhelmed by demand to launch the Afresh platform in other fresh departments. We are taking the same approach of bringing easy-to-use, AI-powered tools to these historically underserved, strategically critical departments.”

Unlike traditional inventory management systems that require perfect data, the Afresh platform helps grocers make smarter decisions with inherently error-prone fresh data, the release said. Afresh doesn’t require fresh departments to correct data inputs. Instead, the platform expects and plans for uncertainty to direct human attention only to the most valuable activities, the company said.

Insights and order recommendations are presented in digital workflows that are designed to be efficient and easy to learn for employees of any tenure, from the most seasoned managers to brand-new employees.

These intuitive workflows, developed after shadowing best practices across core fresh departments, have a 94% adherence rate, resulting in faster inventory turns, lower shrink and higher customer satisfaction, the company said.

Related: Albertsons Cos. installs Afresh tech for produce in more than 2,200 stores

Minnesota-based Cub Foods is one of several Afresh customers planning to expand the solution to other core fresh departments.

"Afresh has been an incredibly supportive and proactive partner as we’ve implemented their produce solution across all of our corporate stores," said Luke Anderson, chief information officer of Cub Foods. "Having a lightweight, fully comprehensive solution that connects across other fresh departments should unlock even more benefits for our customers and store teams."

Founded in 2017 with the mission to eliminate food waste and make fresh food accessible to all, Afresh serves national and regional grocery brands across the U.S. Today, Afresh has partnerships with grocers in more than 3,000 stores and 40 states, including Albertsons Cos., Heinen's, Save Mart, Bashas, Cub Foods and more.