Technology is Transforming Efficiency and Sustainability in the Fresh Produce Industry

Albertsons Debuts AI Tool to Boost Produce Quality

Thu, 14 May 2026 20:05:47 GMT

Albertsons Cos. Inc. says it has launched its patent-pending Intelligent Quality Control tool, an artificial intelligence-powered solution that uses computer vision to support the ability of distribution center associates to maintain high standards for quality and consistency of fresh fruits and vegetables across the company’s supply chain.

Built in-house by Albertsons Cos. technology and supply chain teams, the tool uses Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise, including Vision AI and Gemini models, to support Albertsons Cos.’ quality inspection teams to help ensure customers consistently receive fresh, high-quality produce.

“We built [the] AI-powered Intelligent Quality Control tool to support our team of talented quality inspectors in our distribution centers, and early results show it’s been incredibly helpful in increasing the consistency of quality rating, which is crucial for highly perishable products such as fruits and vegetables,” says Evan Rainwater, executive vice president and chief supply chain officer for Albertsons Cos. “This is just the latest advancement in how we are using AI within our multibillion-dollar supply chain to improve operational efficiencies, improve product quality and ultimately enhance customer satisfaction.”

The Intelligent Quality Control solution was built in-house by Albertsons Cos. teams with advisory support and technology infrastructure from Google Cloud as an enterprise partner. Seamlessly integrating into the distribution center workflow, the quality inspector feeds an image of the produce into AI tool, powered by Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, which evaluates visual characteristics against Albertsons Cos.’ established quality standards.

The system then provides a highly accurate, consistent rating and recommendation to the inspector for approval. By reducing ambiguity and enabling more data-driven decision-making, the Intelligent Quality Control solution provides valuable support to help distribution center teams achieve greater accuracy, consistency and confidence in their work, according to the company.

Live now in select Albertsons Cos. distribution centers, the tool is initially focused on quality inspections for strawberries and red and green grapes. The company is expanding the solution across the entire berry section with plans to scale the tool nationwide and incorporate more fresh products. Albertsons says early results have demonstrated significant operational improvements including:

Increase in rating consistency — AI-driven evaluation has reduced the variability in quality ratings among different inspectors and shifts at a location, ensuring a more uniform standard.
Faster decision-making — The automated scoring system accelerates the inspection process, supporting distribution center teams in getting food quickly to stores so that customers consistently receive fresh, high-quality produce.
Expanded quality data — The solution captures many distinct measures of quality that can be used for ongoing quality analysis and improvement.
Alignment with standards — The solution successfully applies internal Albertsons Cos. quality criteria, with high consistency across all evaluations.

“This collaboration with Albertsons Cos. demonstrates the transformative power of applying advanced AI, like Vision AI and Gemini, to the core of the supply chain,” says Jose Gomes, vice president of retail and consumer packaged goods for Google Cloud. “Ensuring quality consistency for fresh produce is a complex, logistical challenge. By advising on this intelligent component, we are helping Albertsons Cos. drive efficiency and, most importantly, deliver on their promise of fresh, high-quality food to their customers. This is the future of agentic commerce.”

New Great Lakes Tech Event Targets Specialty Crop Survival

Mon, 11 May 2026 21:29:53 GMT

Great Lakes Tek Flex seeks to connect growers in the Great Lakes region with in-field tech demos. The new tech event is set for Sept. 10-11 at the Michigan State University Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center in Benton Harbor, Mich.

Great Lakes Tek Flex plans to feature the latest in weed mitigation and crop management solutions using robotics, drones and precision agriculture technology. The event seeks to improve the sustainability and resiliency of Great Lakes specialty crop growers by removing barriers to technology adoption.

Mark Ledebuhr, principal with Application Insight, says the event is much needed for the region with growers struggling to find labor, whose needs are different than their Western counterparts. It will also bring together ag tech companies with growers in need of innovation.

“If we don’t get [innovation], we may not be growing a lot of specialty crops that we grow in Michigan in 10 years here,” he says.

Ledebuhr says he understands some of the challenges to marketing to growers in this region, which spans about eight states as well as the Canadian province of Ontario. The Southwest Michigan Research and Extension Center is located within a day of 80% of the fruit and vegetables grown in the region, he notes.

“That’s the reason for the site choice,” he says.

Ledebuhr says it’s important to get the technology in front of growers in similar conditions to what’s grown in the region, adding that Great Lakes Tek Flex is designed to bring together entities to work together to solve some of the challenges today’s growers face.

“If you take smart people who are invested in the problem, and you get them together in a room, and you create the space to solve problems, problems get solved,” he says.

But this is more than just a tire-kicking event, he says.

The first day will connect growers with companies that have commercialized technologies with demonstrations to allow for interactions with company representatives so that growers can better understand the benefits of these technologies. These include see-and-spray technology, autonomous vehicles, artificial intelligence perception tools, orchard management, planting, vegetation management, harvesting, drone spray and AI decision support.

“We see technology transforming fields, making planting, monitoring, weed management and harvesting more precise and efficient,” says Randy Stratton, director of Great Lakes Tek Flex Expo and Field Days. “With these innovations, growers are building a smarter, more sustainable future for farming.”

The second day will feature targeted discussions with government officials, industry groups and supporting industries to better identify and align resources and activity to streamline the process of tech adoption.

“I’ve watched more technologies leave this market not because they didn’t have significant benefits, but because we couldn’t figure out how to make space for them to actually help farmers improve,” Stratton says. “So it was organizational and regulatory disincentive that kept these things out of the market.”

Ledebuhr says more companies will be added, but a list of the participating companies can be found at GLTekFlex.org .

Event partners and sponsors include Michigan State University Extension; Michigan Department of Agriculture; Michigan Vegetable Council; Michigan Grape Growers; Michigan Horticultural Society,; Ohio State University; Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Agribusiness; Cornell University; The Ontario Ag Robotics Working Group; and Meshcomm Engineering.

“This event is the first of its kind in North America, right here in the Great Lakes region,” says Mike Reinke, Michigan State University viticulture Extension specialist and Great Lakes Tek Flex board member. “Growers and agronomists are going to find new and proven agri-tech manufacturers demonstrating their technology and connecting with potential end users of these amazing tools.”

Italy’s Ripening Market Enters New Phase as Catalytic Generators Targets Expansion

Fri, 08 May 2026 19:36:25 GMT

As Italy’s fresh produce sector evolves, driven by strong banana imports, growing avocado demand and a well-established persimmon market, the need for simple, safe and controlled ripening solutions is increasing. Still at an early stage in the country, Catalytic Generators used its first participation at the Macfrut 2026 show to increase visibility, engage with Italian operators and lay the foundations for future growth.

Italy stands out as one of Europe’s key fresh produce markets, particularly in fruit categories where controlled ripening plays a central role. According to FAOSTAT, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s corporate statistical database, the country imports over 600,000 metric tons of bananas annually, making it one of the largest banana markets in Europe and underlining the importance of efficient and reliable ripening operations across the supply chain.

Catalytic Generators is targeting expansion in Italy’s evolving fresh produce market.

(Photo courtesy of Catalytic Generators)

At the same time, consumption patterns are evolving. As indicated by the Netherlands CBI agency, avocado demand across Europe has grown significantly in recent years and is expected to continue expanding.

Avocados are projected to become the second-most traded tropical fruit globally by 2030, while already ranking as the second-most valuable imported fruit in Europe. In 2024 alone, European avocado imports reached a value of 3.5 billion euros, of which 2.8 billion euros came from developing countries. This sustained growth, driven by increasing consumer demand and ongoing investment in production, is reinforcing the need for precise and controlled ripening processes across emerging markets such as Italy.

In parallel, Italy remains one of the leading European producers of persimmons, a category where ethylene application is already well understood and widely used in postharvest operations. This combination of mature and fast-growing fruit categories is increasing pressure on operators to deliver consistent, repeatable results at scale. As a result, ensuring fruit quality while maintaining operational efficiency and compliance with strict European regulations is becoming a growing priority.

As supply chains become more complex and demand for uniform ripeness increases, the application of ethylene is emerging as a critical control point.

Supply Stability: A Growing Concern

In addition to these structural trends, supply stability is becoming an increasingly relevant concern for ripening operations as a result of recent geopolitical developments.

“Ethylene is a high-demand commodity used across multiple industrial sectors, with overall demand extending far beyond fruit ripening. As a result, recent geopolitical conflict is creating increasing pressure on availability and pricing stability in some regions, making supply reliability a growing concern for ripening operations,” says Greg Akins, president and CEO of Catalytic Generators. “To address these risks, our systems enable on-site ethylene generation, helping operators reduce dependency on external supply chains, gain greater control over supply and limit exposure to volatility.”

New Jersey Voters Signal Strong Support for Ban on Surveillance Pricing, Digital Tags

Fri, 08 May 2026 15:44:02 GMT

New Jersey is becoming the latest battleground in the national debate over digital pricing in grocery stores. A new poll released by a coalition of labor unions, including the United Food and Commercial Workers Locals and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, reveals that a bipartisan majority of Garden State voters favor a ban on electronic shelf labels and so-called surveillance pricing.

“This predatory technology breaches personal privacy, drives up prices for families and threatens good union jobs,” says UFCW International Vice President Ademola Oyefeso. “As large corporations, such as Walmart, rush to roll out ESLs across their stores, New Jersey lawmakers have the opportunity to ban this technology before it’s too late. This poll proves that New Jerseyans understand the dangers of surveillance pricing and expect their lawmakers to act.”

The survey, conducted by GBAO Strategies, indicates that 65% of New Jerseyans support proposed legislation to prohibit the technology. The data suggests deep-seated consumer anxiety regarding corporate transparency, as 67% of respondents stated they do not trust grocery stores to use ESL technology responsibly, while 61% think the transition to digital tags will lead to higher grocery prices.

A Growing Legislative Movement

The push for a ban is gaining momentum in the New Jersey State House, led by Sen. Joseph Cryan and Assemblyman Chigozie Onyema. Supporters of the legislation argue that ESLs enable surveillance pricing — a practice where retailers use shoppers’ personal data to set individualized prices that can fluctuate instantaneously.

“Electronic shelf labels enable large corporations to use shoppers’ personal data to squeeze them for every last dollar,” Oyefeso says. “Amid persistent high inflation, the last thing families need is for grocery prices to rise even higher.

“New Jersey has a chance to get ahead of this predatory practice before it becomes common practice,” he adds. “UFCW applauds the lawmakers who are standing up for consumers and workers against this corporate exploitation and urges them to pass this legislation before the session’s end.”

The labor coalition also highlights the impact on the workforce, noting that these systems threaten to replace the roles of grocery clerks and force front-line workers to manage consumer frustration over volatile pricing.

Additional findings from the poll show:

61% of New Jersey voters think ESLs, and 67% think surveillance pricing, will cause grocery prices to increase.
Support for proposed legislation in the state cuts across party lines, with 65% in favor of banning this technology in grocery stores.
Retailers cannot be trusted to do the right thing, with 67% of respondents saying they don’t trust grocery stores to use the technology responsibly.
More than 75% of New Jerseyans have a negative view of U.S. economy, with 73% worried about the cost of groceries for their household and 70% expecting the amount they spend on groceries to increase in the next year.
ESLs enable retailers to change prices instantaneously, and corporations are racing to deploy them. Walmart, for example, plans to replace traditional paper price tags with digital ones across all of its stores by the end of 2026. The corporation also recently secured patents to use shoppers’ personal data to update prices at scale.
ESLs also threaten the livelihoods of grocery workers. These systems could replace the skilled work of grocery clerks or, at the very least, leave them to explain a company’s actions to rightfully angry shoppers. UFCW represents more than 800,000 grocery workers across North America.

National Context

New Jersey’s legislative push is part of UFCW’s broader “Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs Campaign,” which has seen 12 states take aim at artificial intelligence-driven technology in the retail sector. The movement comes as major retailers accelerate their digital transitions; notably, Walmart recently announced plans to replace paper tags with digital versions across all locations by 2026.

With 70% of New Jerseyans expecting their grocery bills to increase over the next year, the debate over who controls the price on the shelf — and how often it can change — is set to remain a focal point for lawmakers through the end of the session.

This latest update follows previous coverage of the escalating tension between retail modernization and consumer protection:

Walmart and Unions Clash Over Future Digital Price Tags — A look at the labor concerns and corporate motivations behind the nationwide rollout of ESLs.
Poll: New Yorkers Want Full Ban on Digital Tags; Maryland Passes Landmark Privacy Law — An exploration of similar consumer sentiment in New York and the first successful legislative restrictions in Maryland.
Maryland Says No to Surveillance Pricing — Deep dive into the poll results that fueled Maryland’s landmark stance against data-driven grocery pricing.

Hy-Vee Chooses Relex to Further Strengthen Product Availability and Freshness Across Its Stores

Wed, 06 May 2026 21:00:10 GMT

Hy-Vee Inc., the employee-owned grocery retailer serving the Midwest, has selected Relex Solutions to improve forecasting, replenishment and fresh-store ordering across its stores and distribution network. The grocer says the initiative supports Hy-Vee’s commitment to keeping shelves fully stocked, fresh products available and store teams focused on delivering the helpful, reliable service customers expect in every store and community it serves.

Hy-Vee operates more than 560 business units across nine states. As customer expectations evolve and demand patterns become more dynamic, the company says it is strengthening the tools behind its operations to ensure the right products are in the right place at the right time across both fresh and center-store categories.

With Relex, Hy-Vee will deploy AI-driven unified planning capabilities that improve demand forecasting and help automate replenishment decisions. The new platform will provide greater visibility across stores and distribution centers, helping make processes more efficient while improving accuracy and supporting daily ordering decisions, particularly in fresh departments where precision is critical.

Fresh is central to Hy-Vee’s brand promise. By improving its forecasting and ordering processes, the retailer is giving its teams better tools to serve customers, reduce food waste and stay focused on delivering quality and value in every aisle.

“Hy-Vee has built its reputation on freshness and service,” says Doug Iverson, Relex Solutions’ senior vice president, North America. “By bringing forecasting, replenishment and fresh-store ordering together in one platform, Relex will help Hy-Vee simplify planning and improve coordination from its distribution centers to its store shelves.”

GrubMarket Named to Time100 Companies List of Industry Leaders

Mon, 04 May 2026 21:39:15 GMT

GrubMarket says it has been named to the inaugural Time100 Companies: Industry Leaders list, which recognizes companies making an extraordinary impact.

To compile the list, Time solicited nominations across sectors and surveyed its global network of contributors, correspondents and external experts. Editors evaluated each company based on key factors, including impact, innovation, ambition and success.

“GrubMarket makes software that helps food wholesalers track the price of mangoes and issue PTO requests,” Time writes. “It also happens to be the largest private food company in the United States, valued at $4.5 billion. Since the pandemic, the San Francisco-based company, founded by Mike Xu, has been on a dizzying acquisitions spree, gobbling up dozens of food wholesalers and distributors — companies that supply tropical fruits to Walmart and tomatoes to In-N-Out Burger — and converting them into modern e-commerce operations running on its AI-powered WholesaleWare platform, which automates everything from ordering and pricing to demand forecasting for perishable goods. The strategy has given GrubMarket a growing stake in the food supply chain itself, not just the technology running it.”

GrubMarket says this recognition follows a year of significant growth and innovation for the company, which has accelerated its pace of AI innovation, introducing a new generation of agentic AI solutions, including the Inventory Management AI Agent, Reporting AI Agent and Monitoring AI Agent.

GrubMarket also acquired Delta Fresh Produce in April 2025, and in June 2025 it acquired Coast Citrus. In November 2025, GrubMarket added over 850 software customers with the acquisition of Procurant.

The company says it has also made strides with its Sustainable California initiative, which has sponsored the planting of over 230,000 trees in at-risk regions throughout the state. GrubMarket also continues to support underserved farmers in achieving organic certification through grants, mentorship and technical assistance.

The company says it plans to further scale its presence across the U.S. and internationally.

“We are honored to be recognized by Time as one of the Time100 Companies: Industry Leaders,” says Mike Xu, founder and CEO of GrubMarket. “This recognition reflects our team’s relentless pursuit of operational excellence and sustainable growth, as well as our progress against our mission to transform the food supply chain through AI, eCommerce, vertical software-as-a-service and other technological innovations. We are honored to advance solutions that drive better efficiency and performance, and we remain committed to fostering a healthier, more sustainable future for our industry.”

The Hidden Risk: Why Water Quality Is the Next Big Challenge for Specialty Crops

Mon, 04 May 2026 20:12:48 GMT

In the world of specialty crops, the conversation around water has long been dominated by the urgent need for volume, with many farmers wondering if they will have enough supply to simply get through the season. However, Kilimo CEO Jairo Trad points to a more insidious threat mounting in the global supply chain. While drought remains a visible crisis, water quality — specifically the degradation caused by overfertilization and runoff — is emerging as a significant risk that many producers have yet to fully quantify.

Founded in Córdoba, Argentina, in 2014, Kilimo was born from Trad’s observations of how weather volatility could decide the fate of a family farm. Today, the climate-tech company uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to analyze satellite imagery and meteorological data, helping farmers across seven countries, including U.S. and Chile, reduce water use by up to 30%. As the company expands its footprint in high-stakes regions like California’s San Joaquin Valley, the focus is shifting toward a more holistic view of water stewardship.

The Quality Blind Spot

For high-value crops like almonds, berries and citrus, the chemistry of the water is just as vital as the volume. Poor water quality doesn’t just impact immediate yields; it creates a compounding cycle of soil degradation and increased costs. Trad notes that this is particularly dangerous in specialty crop regions where production is concentrated. When water courses become polluted, the farming activity itself begins to worsen the very conditions required for future harvests.

“Water pollution and overfertilization lead to significant problems for farmers down the line,” Trad says. “In specialty crops, there is not enough data and not enough conversation around the water quality that farmers are using and how the same farming activity keeps worsening those water conditions.”

This creates a feedback loop that threatens the sustainability of the land in the most literal sense: the ability to sustain production over the long term. If the water quality isn’t high enough for the crops, the entire economic model of the farm begins to crumble, Trad says.

Data as the New Inheritance

Kilimo is tackling this vulnerability by moving beyond simple irrigation schedules. Its platform acts as a bridge between traditional agricultural wisdom and modern climate demands. By layering water balance modeling and local climate data, it can show growers in real time the exact difference between what a crop demands and what is actually being applied.

This data-first approach does more than just save acre-feet; it reduces the need for excess pumping and helps mitigate the overapplication of fertilizers that leads to water pollution. For Trad, this technology is a way to protect the “grandfather’s wisdom” that has guided farms for decades.

“Data can become a new kind of inheritance — a tool that doesn’t replace wisdom but helps it weather a changing climate,” Trad says. “Agriculture isn’t merely the sector most exposed to water risk; it’s our strongest partner for rebuilding the commons.”

Rewarding Stewardship Through Water Credits

To bridge the financial gap, Kilimo has pioneered a first-of-its-kind water-credit marketplace. In this model, verified water savings are treated similarly to carbon credits. Global companies like Microsoft, Google and Coca-Cola — seeking to meet water-positive pledges — invest in these credits, effectively paying farmers for the water they conserve.

This mechanism ensures that the cost of protecting water quality and quantity isn’t shouldered by the farmer alone. It transforms water conservation from a regulatory burden into a verifiable asset. As Trad puts it: “Water for agriculture is essentially free … so [farmers] have very little reason to be mindful of water beyond their own ideas that they should conserve it. The challenge is to give value to water.”

A Shared Future

As climate pressures mount, the industry must recognize that specialty crops are essentially “solar panels that function on water.” If the water fueling them is compromised, either by scarcity or by pollution, the entire system fails. By prioritizing water data today, specialty crop growers can transform a hidden risk into a verified competitive advantage.

The goal is to build a system where the health of the resources is as measurable as the harvest itself. In Trad’s view, this is the only way forward.

“Technology helps, but it doesn’t lead,” Trad says. “Farmers lead. We bring the tools; they bring the wisdom. That’s the only way this works.”

How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming the Fresh Produce Supply Chain

Mon, 04 May 2026 11:32:34 GMT

TORONTO — A panel at the Canadian Produce Marketing Association Convention and Trade Show discussed both the opportunities and the challenges of using artificial intelligence in the fresh produce industry. While moderator Steve Roosdahl, CEO and president of BC Fresh, warned that AI can hallucinate and create false information if not fed good data, the benefit to closed data sets was discussed by panelists Stewart Lapage, vice president of supply chain and logistics for The Oppenheimer Group; Mike Meinhardt, North American business development executive for Clarifresh; Tim Raiswell, CEO of Oxrow.ai; and Alex Carvalho, chief technology officer of Bloom IQ.

“AI is kind of like your smartest friend that does hallucinogenic drugs. If AI doesn’t know, it makes it up,” Roosdahl says. “But as it learns, it needs feedback, and it needs good data to make good decisions.”

Meinhardt says these closed data sets, which use only the collected information the company supplies, ensure analytics are accurate.

“That’s a very healthy place to be,” Meinhardt says. “You don’t have to worry about garbage data because it’s your data — your data only that you’ve collected.”

Carvalho says that grounding models using specific searches and algorithms ensure information users act upon is consistent and accurate.

Scaling Operational Accuracy From Packinghouse Sorters to Global Logistics

When asked about the potential benefits AI can present, Raiswell says it falls in two categories. The first is acceleration of work, which includes automating repetitive, standardized tasks like scheduling, processing invoices and compliance. The second includes the ability for organizations to perform tasks previously impossible without specific skills.

Meinhardt says that AI can help scan fruit much faster within packing operations and screen for specific defects.

“We use AI to measure size, color, color coverage, stem color and external defects,” he says. “[We use] machine learning to identify cracks versus scars versus sunburns and so forth.”

Roosdahl says AI can offer consistency that might not be possible with even the best sorter.

“You get consistency because you get a machine that — when people get tired, they miss things, but machines tend not to,” he says.

Lapage says he sees a huge potential for AI’s use in farming to boost long-term sustainability.

“I see the real benefit being actually on the farming and growing side,” he says. “There are so many farmers and growers around the world on a knife’s edge, as we like to call it, whether their businesses and their farming operations are going to be sustainable from year to year. They can use this technology to find efficiencies, save costs, improve forecasting, yield — all the different things to make the farming side of the business sustainable.”

Roosdahl points out that drones could scout for pests and water issues and machines could automatically weed.

Lapage says, though, that data security is a huge focus for Oppy as it integrates new technology. Roosdahl cautioned the audience to ensure that data protection is a huge component of the integration as new technology is brought into an operation.

While it might seem tempting to use a public AI model that’s available — such as ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, etc. — Roosdahl cautions against that, as that data will be shared as common knowledge.

“If you just go with public AI and you take all your policies in your company and throw them out there, now everybody has your policies,” he says.

Evolution Toward Specialized Language Models and Proprietary Data Security

Raiswell says that the future of AI is less about the technology and more about how companies will integrate it.

“If you’re wondering how AI is going to impact my workforce, that’s more to do with you and how you structure roles than it is to do with AI,” he says.

Raiswell says industry leaders will be willing to test AI against the best human experts.

“The companies that are willing to ask that question of our gala guy, our Honeycrisp guy who knows the market better than anyone — are they willing to put them up against AI and really test that hypothesis?” he says.

Lapage also says he expects the conversation around AI at CPMA’s 2027 event in Vancouver, British Columbia, will be markedly different, but he warns that produce industry businesses that are reluctant to enact AI might not recover as technology continues to evolve at a rapid pace.

“If we don’t get on board, we’re probably going to get left behind to some degree,” he says.

Meinhardt says he sees opportunities with warehouse and operations, noting that there’s a strong potential for food safety.

“Food safety documentation [is] all rolled up into AI, giving you a food safety scorecard and telling you what your risks and analysis [are] and then, you know, trying to send the alarm light before the alarm light needs to be sounded,” he says.

Carvalho says that AI will shift within the next five years from general large language models designed for broad tasks — such as ChatGPT, Claude and Microsoft Copilot — to smaller language models designed for very specific tasks.

“Each model knows one specific part of the process to help you optimize your systems, your day-to-day and how you work,” he says.

And he expects this small language model will also help improve the work-life balance of its users.

“In five years, I believe we will have a better work-life balance and also a more improved work with all this decision making,” he says.

DoorDash Expands SNAP/EBT Grocery Delivery to 2,700 Kroger Stores

Mon, 04 May 2026 11:27:45 GMT

DoorDash says it has expanded its Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and Electronic Benefit Transfer payment capabilities on the DoorDash Marketplace to nearly 2,700 Kroger stores, including banners such as Mariano’s, Fred Meyer and Ralphs.

DoorDash says with this launch, millions of SNAP-eligible consumers can now shop online for fresh groceries and more from Kroger stores and have them delivered through DoorDash, which helps expand access to affordable food.

SNAP consumers can use their benefits to purchase eligible items, including produce, meat, dairy, frozen foods and other essentials, via the DoorDash Marketplace. DoorDash says it will also offer $0 delivery fees for a limited time on the first order from the Kroger family of brands when consumers pay with an EBT card.

The company says that with the addition of Kroger, now more than 4.5 million consumers have added their SNAP card to DoorDash, and the platform includes more than 57,000 stores that accept SNAP and EBT payments.

“Access to affordable food is fundamental,” says Mike Goldblatt, vice president of enterprise partnerships at DoorDash. “This collaboration with Kroger marks an important step forward for SNAP access nationwide. Together, we’re helping millions of consumers shop more conveniently for the groceries their households rely on every day.”

Poll: New Yorkers Want Full Ban on Digital Tags as Maryland Passes Landmark Surveillance Pricing Law

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 19:17:18 GMT

A groundswell of consumer opposition is forming against the grocery industry’s shift toward digital shelf technology. A new poll reveals that a majority of New Yorkers support a statewide ban on electronic shelf labels and surveillance pricing, citing fears of predatory price hikes and the exploitation of personal data.

The poll, conducted by GBAO Strategies on behalf of a coalition of United Food and Commercial Workers locals and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, found that two-thirds of New York voters favor legislation to outlaw the technology in grocery stores.

The sentiment is fueled by deep economic anxiety: More than 70% of respondents reported being worried about the cost of groceries, and 64% specifically think that switching from paper to digital tags will cause prices to rise.

Presidents of UFCW Locals 1, 338 RWDSU/UFCW, 342, 1500 and RWDSU, which represent retail grocery workers in New York, said in a release: “Our members know the dangers that electronic shelf labels pose to consumers and grocery workers alike. This poll confirms that the majority of New Yorkers understand the same thing.

“Grocery prices in our state are among the highest in the country,” the statement continues. “The last thing shoppers need is to have personal data like their ZIP code or shopping habits used to squeeze every last dollar out of their pockets. We’re proud to support the lawmakers pushing to protect New Yorkers from this predatory technology.”

The technology in question allows retailers to change prices instantaneously across an entire store. Lawmakers, led by New York state Sen. Michael Gianaris and Assemblywoman Michaelle C. Solages, are currently advancing the Protecting Consumers and Jobs from Discriminatory Pricing Act, which would mandate traditional paper labels in large retail environments.

Walmart’s Digital Push Sparks Nationwide Debate

The legislative battle in New York comes as the world’s largest retailer doubles down on the very technology some state lawmakers seek to ban.

As the retail industry continues to evolve, there’s a deepening divide between major retailers and labor groups over the implementation of these high-tech systems.

Walmart is currently on track to replace traditional paper price tags with digital ones in all of its U.S. stores by the end of 2026. While Walmart frames the move as an efficiency play that reduces manual labor for employees, the retail giant’s recent patents have sparked fresh alarms.

The company recently secured patents for technology that could use shoppers’ personal data to update prices at scale. This so-called “surveillance pricing” capability is the primary target of the proposed New York ban. While Walmart maintains that the labels are about operational ease, the GBAO Strategies poll suggests a massive trust gap: 66% of New Yorkers say they do not trust grocery retailers to use such technology responsibly.

As New York lawmakers consider the ban before the end of the current session, the state has become a primary battleground between corporate automation and labor-backed consumer protections. If the bill passes, it could create a significant roadblock for Walmart’s 2026 nationwide rollout and set a precedent for the 11 other states currently participating in UFCW’s campaign.

“Shoppers across New York are already facing record-high grocery prices. Electronic shelf labels, with their ability to change prices at a moment’s notice, threaten to drive up costs even higher,” UFCW International Vice President Ademola Oyefeso says.

“This poll confirms that New Yorkers understand just how dangerous this technology is and expect their elected officials, regardless of political party, to take action,” Oyefeso continues. “UFCW applauds the lawmakers who are standing up for consumers and workers, and urges the entire legislature to make these bills law before the end of session.”

New York is among 12 states to have joined UFCW’s Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs Campaign to ban the predatory practice of surveillance pricing, target the encroachment of artificial intelligence-driven technology in grocery stores and deliver fair prices for families while preserving union grocery jobs.

Maryland Passes Nation’s First Ban on Surveillance Pricing

While New York activists push for a total hardware ban, Maryland has just set a significant legal precedent. According to Kiplinger , Maryland is poised to become the first state in the country to officially ban surveillance pricing.

Earlier this month, the Maryland Legislature passed the Protection From Predatory Pricing Act (H.B. 895), a landmark bill introduced by Gov. Wes Moore. Rather than banning the physical electronic labels, the act targets the algorithms behind them. Taking effect on Oct. 1, the law prohibits grocers and third-party delivery apps from using surveillance data or “dynamic pricing” to fluctuate costs throughout the day.

“Marylanders deserve to know that the price they see on the shelf is the price they will pay at the register,” Moore said in January . “Our administration is laser-focused on protecting Marylanders from skyrocketing costs. At a time when Marylanders are already stretched by the rising cost of groceries, housing and everyday necessities, we must ensure that new technologies are not used to drive up the bill for working families.”

The law carries significant teeth, with first-time fines reaching up to $10,000. However, the measure remains a point of contention; despite the historic nature of the bill, the UFCW has criticized it for containing “loopholes,” arguing that only a total ban on ESLs can truly protect families.

As New York lawmakers review their own pending legislation, they now face a choice: follow Maryland’s regulatory path or enact the total ban demanded by the state’s labor unions and many of its voters.

“Dynamic pricing is predatory pricing,” Maryland state Delegate Kriselda Valderrama said in January. “We have no hesitation telling the marketplace that groceries are off-limits for these kinds of practices. Data used against Marylanders to create individualized grocery prices is a breach of public trust.”

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Huckleberry Signals Shifts the Produce Industry From Analog Spreadsheets to AI Answers

Fri, 24 Apr 2026 10:55:30 GMT

As Joe Vargas worked on the marketing desk of a major tree fruit grower, he noticed a problem: Sales associates relied on printouts of spreadsheets and their “gut” instead of forecasting. He knew there had to be a better way.

Now, as the CEO of Huckleberry Signals, he says he and his CTO — artificial intelligence veteran and data architect Amanda Kuelker — hope to help grower-packer-shippers not only forecast but also improve outcomes in their produce businesses.

While Vargas says he helped his company build a modern data stack incorporating data from the Washington State Tree Fruit Association, Nielsen data and more to better understand the business, he says many companies are still analog.

“People don’t want to build dashboards,” Vargas says. “They don’t want to build out Excel workbooks.”

Beyond the Spreadsheet

What produce desks need is an analyst, but what Vargas says happens to companies that do employ an analyst is that they get bogged down with requests for information when the entire company — from CEO to marketing — could benefit from having access to that data.

He says this is where AI and large language models can truly help find, process and contextualize data coming from all sorts of sources, including enterprise resource planning systems, warehouse systems, business intelligence tools and even “institutional knowledge.”

“We’re a full infrastructure,” Vargas says. “This is where we can come into any organization that has any sort of POS system or QC (quality control) system or any part and bring all that data in and model it in a way that makes sense to the person that’s consuming the information.”

As a produce business onboards Huckleberry Signals, it deploys an agent called Huck to learn more from the key stakeholders using the platform. Huck will learn what questions the stakeholders need answers to, organizational questions about how pieces of data are referred to (i.e., liquidation vs. grow or profits vs. returns) so that Huck better understands how people will interact with it and respond with better information.

Vargas says a good example of what Huck can bring to the table is if a salesperson is on a call with a major retailer that asks about last year’s sales figures. Instead of that salesperson having to hang up, ask an analyst who will have to look up the information and then get back to the retailer, Huck can provide that information quickly and then offer some other information that might be of interest to the retailer.

Leveling the Playing Field

“It flips the script,” Vargas says. “I’ve watched growers, packers, shippers be just so outmatched by retailers … because they have the data. … If you can come back with answers that are backed by facts, now you’re in a whole new game. What I’m passionate about is really trying to get the grower returns. If there’s a fifth-generation grower and wants to be a sixth-generation grower, we want to give them that opportunity.”

Vargas says his goal is to help organizations take in any kind of data — whether that be QC data, inventory, sales, Nielsen panel or weather — and make it accessible and helpful. Vargas emphasizes that because produce is a timing-sensitive business, the goal of Huckleberry is to bridge the gap between a company’s disconnected data silos before the clock runs out on a perishable shipment.

“That’s really what Huck is about: getting down, giving each person on your team the ability to ask questions, get answers,” he says. “You’re really working with Huck like he’s your analyst.”

Vargas also says that Huck will continue to improve over time, as with all large language models. He says Huck will be able to provide descriptive analytics, which he calls “the mean, the median, what happened last year versus this year,” to predictive analytics, where Huck can determine what is going to happen based on historical data to prescriptive analytics, where Huck will be able to offer recommendations.

“And that takes some time, because you have to understand there’s a feedback loop with our program, but it’ll get there,” he says. “That’s six months to a year working with an organization. We start building out machine learning models. We start doing some of these other data science methodologies. We can get there and really work with these companies, and Huck becomes less of an analyst and more of a colleague. This is somebody who knows your business, and they can iterate on the data so much faster on such a bigger data set than people can do in an Excel workbook.”

Vargas says that while spreadsheets might have a place on a sales desk, it’s the lack of information available at an organization’s fingertips that is most costly.

“I think that a lot of companies are just drowning in data but starving for answers,” he says. “There’s data everywhere. They just don’t know how to use it, and they don’t have the tools, and they don’t have the know-how.”

He says this is exactly what Huckleberry Signals hopes to accomplish.

“We meet you where you are,” he says. “You bring your data. We go and investigate. We have architects on the team. We can set all these things up for you at a fraction of the cost.”

Built for Security

Vargas says the data in Huckleberry from each organization has protections and silos so, for example, a competitor also using Huckleberry Signals doesn’t have access to it. He says his team has also built significant guardrails to prevent hallucinations that many publicly available large language models are known for.

“All the data and analytics get brought into a structured data warehouse for us,” he says. “So, anytime that Huck is going to get information, he’s going and grabbing from a structured data set to report back on actual numbers, and we can go through and validate that very quickly.”

Huckleberry Signals is also undergoing SOC 2 certification to ensure the data is protected and secure and, of course, accurate.

“When it comes to analytics, you have to be very careful, because that decision you’re making could be a million-dollar decision, and you’re basing it off of data,” Vargas says. “So, that’s where our focus is, really. We have a lot of fail-safes, a lot of stuff in place.”

Vargas says Huckleberry Signals will be sold as a subscription model to ensure all companies using the system will be running on the most up-to-date version. While many in the fresh produce industry are reluctant to incorporate AI, those who take a wait-and-see approach will be left behind, he adds.

“A year from now, you’re going to have to start at the same location,” he says. “It’s not going to be the benefit that maybe we’ve seen with other SaaS (software-as-a-service) products, like the quicker you get in, the quicker you can get started, the quicker you’re going to have an edge on that competition.”

Why Huckleberry?

And as for why the name Huckleberry Signals?

“Huckleberry hasn’t been propagated, so it’s a very unique commodity,” Vargas says. “It’s close to home for me. I’m in Montana. I go huckleberry picking every year. It’s really a staple in my world.”

He says Kuelker also thought about the movie “Tombstone” and Doc Holliday’s popular line referencing huckleberry, which meant the name got her vote.

“Huckleberry and Signals is really a nod to getting answers faster,” he says. “Understanding the signals, understanding the market changes, trends — and so, putting those together is very unique, and it’s going to be something that gives you a competitive advantage.”

Afresh Raises $34M to Scale AI Across Grocery

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 17:28:19 GMT

Afresh, which recently extended its artificial intelligence platform for grocery from fresh produce to the entire store , has raised $34 million in new funding to accelerate its expansion, according to a release. The round was co-led by Just Climate, the specialist climate-led investment business set up by Generation Investment Management, and HighSage Ventures, with participation from all major investors.

The San Francisco-based company says it has managed nearly 8 billion fresh food ordering decisions across its retail partners in the last 12 months, representing 60% growth from 2024. And its AI platform has scaled to over 12,500 departments with 70% year-over-year revenue growth in 2025.

The new funding will fuel continued growth, expansion into new product areas to support in-store production and a broader reach to more grocers across the country, says Afresh.

Every day, billions of decisions determine how food moves through the grocery supply chain: what to order, how much to stock, and what to produce. In a $10 trillion global industry built on perishable inventory and razor-thin margins, those decisions are made under constant pressure, often across fragmented systems, the company says.

Afresh says its AI platform brings real-time intelligence to grocery decision-making from store-level ordering to distribution center buying. Built first for fresh, Afresh developed AI designed for short shelf life, unpredictable demand and imperfect data. That foundation now extends across the full grocery enterprise, including center store, frozen and general merchandise.

“We’ve spent nearly a decade building AI to solve the complexity of grocery, and we’re now seeing that approach scale across the industry,” says Matt Schwartz, CEO and co-founder of Afresh. “The decisions AI makes in grocery aren’t about optimizing pixels on a screen; they’re about physical products with shelf lives measured in days, moving through a supply chain that feeds billions of people. Our platform orchestrates those decisions at scale, so buyers, store teams and merchandisers can spend less time on routine execution and more time on the strategy and judgment that drive outcomes.”

Afresh is live in more than 12,500 departments across 40 states, partnering with grocery retailers, including Albertsons Cos., Meijer and Wakefern. Its platform supports merchandising, store operations and supply chain teams in improving in-stock rates, reducing waste and strengthening margins, enabling retailers to achieve measurable results, including up to a 25% reduction in shrink, a 3% sales lift and a 7% improvement in inventory turns, the company says.

This new capital will accelerate that expansion, supporting broader deployment across retail partners and continued investment in next-generation AI.

An Industry at Inflection

The funding comes at a moment of accelerating adoption, as grocery retailers move from isolated pilots to scaled AI deployment across stores, categories and supply chains.

Afresh says more than 60% of the company’s entire lifetime order volume has occurred in the last 12 months, as retailers expand adoption across stores, categories and workflows. Over the same period, Afresh has sustained 70% year-over-year revenue growth while expanding from fresh replenishment into a platform spanning six enterprise-grade solutions — covering full-store ordering, production planning, distribution center buying and supply chain optimization.

“HighSage has been invested in Afresh for many years, and our conviction has only grown,” says Owen Wurzbacher, chief investment officer at High Sage Ventures. “Afresh has an exceptional team, a happy and rapidly growing list of customers and a differentiated platform. Their best days lie ahead. This was an easy moment to grow our investment.”

Better Decisions, Less Waste, Lower Emissions

In grocery, food waste is a business problem before anything else. An estimated 30% to 40% of food is wasted across the broader food system, driving lost sales, margin erosion and excess inventory, says Afresh. The decisions retailers make about what to order and stock ripple upstream, determining what gets grown, processed and transported across the entire food system. Afresh says getting those decisions right is one of the highest-leverage interventions available to reduce waste and emissions at scale.

“Food waste is one of the most critical and overlooked drivers of emissions in the food system,” says Libby Spalding, director at Generation Investment Management. “Afresh’s AI platform strengthens the demand signal at the retail and distribution center levels, which have outsized upstream consequences. The results mean stronger margins for retailers and lower emissions for the system.”

Afresh says it has helped prevent more than 200 million pounds of food waste to date. The company says it continues to advance a clear premise: Better decisions drive better outcomes — for retailers, consumers and the global food system.

Your next read: Beyond the Perimeter: Afresh CEO on Scaling Produce-Native AI to the Entire Retail Enterprise

Share-ify Appoints AI Product Manager and Solutions Architect

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 22:01:35 GMT

Share-ify has named Joh Johannsen its artificial intelligence product manager and solutions architect, a strategic addition that the company says reflects its continued investment in building a smarter, more intelligent platform for the food industry.

In this role, Johannsen will help lead the development and execution of Share-ify’s AI product strategy, with a focus on turning complex supply chain data into more actionable insights and more automated workflows for customers, according to a news release. The Orlando, Fla.-based company says the appointment supports its broader commitment to incorporating AI across the Share-ify platform in ways that improve visibility, efficiency, traceability and decision-making for food manufacturers, distributors, retailers and other supply chain partners.

Johannsen is a graduate of Harvard University, where he studied applied mathematics and computer science. Share-ify says he brings a strong technical foundation and engineering experience spanning both high-growth startups and major global organizations, including Journal Technologies, Amgen and Amazon.

His background combines academic rigor with practical product and engineering expertise, positioning him to help translate advanced AI capabilities into scalable tools that solve real operational challenges, the company says.

“Joh’s arrival is an important step for Share-ify as we continue expanding the intelligence and automation built into our platform,” says Ernesto Nardone, CEO of Share-ify. “We are committed to applying AI in ways that create meaningful value for our customers, whether that means improving decision-making, reducing manual work or helping companies respond faster to the demands of an increasingly complex food supply chain. As a fellow math and computer science graduate with a specialty in artificial intelligence from McGill University, I am especially pleased to welcome another mathematician to the team.”

Johannsen has been working with Claude Code since its initial release and has extensive experience across a broad range of AI and large language model tools. Over the course of his career, he has helped experiment with, deploy and refine real-world AI applications across multiple environments and use cases.

Share-ify says this hands-on experience will support its efforts to accelerate AI innovation responsibly and practically, ensuring new capabilities are aligned with customer needs and built for real-world adoption.

This hire signals Share-ify’s ongoing focus on the future of food safety, compliance and supply chain collaboration through technology that is more predictive, more responsive and easier for customers to use, the company says.

As Share-ify continues to evolve its platform, it says AI will play an increasingly important role in helping customers manage product data, identify risks earlier and operate with greater confidence and speed.

Kubota Invests in Agtonomy

Thu, 23 Apr 2026 21:49:12 GMT

Kubota Corp. says the company has invested in Agtonomy, a U.S.-based startup engaged in developing platforms and automation systems for agricultural operations.

The company has partnered with Agtonomy since 2024 to work on commercializing smart solutions for specialty crops. With this investment, the companies will further accelerate collaboration.

Kubota says the joint projects with Agtonomy serve as an opportunity to collaborate and advance the development of smart solutions for specialty crops using agricultural machinery equipped with automation technology.

Agtonomy serves growers across key agricultural regions, including California, Oregon and Washington. Based on feedback from growers, Kubota says Agtonomy is focused on improving the precision and productivity of farming tasks, driving technological innovation toward sustainable agriculture.

At CES 2026, one of the world’s largest technology exhibitions, held in Las Vegas, Kubota exhibited its autonomous M5 Narrow equipped with Agtonomy’s autonomous driving system. It has also achieved an early commercial deployment of Agtonomy’s services across the Western U.S. through collaboration with Kubota’s agricultural machinery dealers.

Kubota says it intends to support Agtonomy’s business growth and accelerate the adoption of smart solutions in the agricultural sector through external partnerships.

The Fertilizer Gap Is Real — Here Is the Tech Closing It

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 19:07:03 GMT

The ripple effects of global conflict are landing squarely on the farm, where rising fertilizer prices and tightening supply chains are forcing difficult decisions. For many growers, the math no longer works the way it used to.

“More than 80% of rice, cotton and peanut producers reported they cannot afford all required fertilizer,” says Arthur Erickson, CEO of Hylio, underscoring the scale of the challenge facing production agriculture. While specialty crop-specific data remains limited, the broader trend shows that farmers are being pushed to do more with less.

That shift is accelerating interest in precision agriculture tools, particularly drones designed to apply inputs with far greater accuracy than traditional equipment.

Erickson describes the approach as fundamentally data-driven. Farmers can deploy scouting drones or satellite imagery to assess field variability, identifying exactly where fertilizer or crop protection is needed — and where it isn’t.

“You could analyze the pixels essentially across the imagery on your farm, and then, of course, just target those specific areas,” he says. “In that way, just being a lot more surgical … would lead to an overall reduction in your input needed to get the same or better result.”

That level of precision matters most when budgets are squeezed. If growers are cutting fertilizer use by 30% to 50%, blanket applications can translate into wasted product in some areas and insufficient nutrients in others. Targeted spraying allows them to stretch limited resources without sacrificing yield potential.

Arthur Erickson, CEO for Hylio, says farmers can deploy scouting drones or satellite imagery to assess field variability, identifying exactly where fertilizer or crop protection is needed — and where it isn’t.

(Photo courtesy of Hylio)

“You have to have the data,” Erickson says. “You also have to have a precise enough application tool to do right by that data.”

Traditional equipment, he adds, often lacks that granularity. Even with strong field intelligence, a 120-foot boom sprayer or aerial application cannot match the pinpoint accuracy of drones capable of treating small, defined zones.

An Accessible Alternative

The economic pressure extends beyond inputs. Erickson points to a “double whammy” of rising costs paired with falling commodity prices, leaving farmers with less revenue and higher expenses per acre.

“What we’re seeing is a huge reduction in new purchases of traditional, larger equipment,” he says, noting that tractor sales are down significantly in some regions.

In contrast, drones are emerging as a more accessible alternative. Erickson estimates that a fleet of agricultural drones can cost a fraction of traditional machinery while covering thousands of acres per day.

“Instead of spending $500,000 on a tractor, you could spend $100,000 and still have a fleet,” he says. “So, four or five times cheaper in terms of capital cost and also on the operating cost side.”

That affordability is helping drive adoption even in a tight financial environment. In fact, Erickson describes the current moment as a turning point for farmers who may have been hesitant to embrace new technology.

“This was kind of a big enough shock to actually convince them to try something ‘new’ or untested as drone technology,” he says. “Once they use it, they’re going to realize it is pretty darn effective.”

Eye on the Horizon

Supply chain uncertainty is another factor reshaping decision-making. From COVID-19 disruptions to ongoing geopolitical tensions, farmers are increasingly concerned about access to equipment and replacement parts.

“Half the conversations we have with farmers come up like, ‘Hey, if I do buy your drone, where are your parts coming from?’” Erickson says. “Is it one-day shipping, or is it three months’ shipping for a replacement part?”

That concern is driving interest in domestically produced technology. Erickson notes that Hylio has seen demand increase during past disruptions as farmers sought alternatives to overseas supply chains.

“It’s been one thing after another,” he says, citing COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and current tensions involving Iran. “Even the people that normally wouldn’t pay attention are being forced to think about that every day.”

Incentives Serve as a Catalyst

Public funding may also help accelerate adoption. Several states already offer grants for precision agriculture tools, and federal programs tied to the next farm bill could expand access to subsidized loans or direct funding.

“These grants are generally funding precision agriculture tools,” Erickson says, adding that many programs include Buy American requirements that favor domestically manufactured equipment.

For growers navigating today’s volatile environment, those incentives could lower the barrier to entry for technologies that promise both cost savings and efficiency gains.

The implications extend beyond the farm gate. Reduced planting or lower input use could tighten supply and push food prices higher in the coming months.

“There’s going to be a price hike,” Erickson says. “I mean, the number of farmers that literally can’t plant crops this year or they’re severely cutting back on the acreage, there’s a pretty good chance [of] significant price increases.”

While the exact trajectory remains uncertain, the direction is clear: As global pressures reshape agriculture, tools that help farmers maximize every input are moving from optional to essential.

How Ontario Greenhouse Growers Are Building a New Canadian Gold Standard

Mon, 20 Apr 2026 00:17:04 GMT

Canadian greenhouse growers have noticed a greater focus on domestic production. While “elbows up” is a hockey term to protect a player’s personal space, it has become something more personal to Canadians and their shopping habits at the grocery store.

Shift Toward Purposeful Purchasing

Mark Reimer, research and business development manager for Great Lakes Greenhouses, says the “elbows up” mentality has expanded to how consumers connect with the produce grown in the province and country. It is a shift from passive buying to an active preference for homegrown quality, effectively turning Canadian products into the gold standard for freshness and reliability.

“As a family-owned and operated greenhouse, the ‘Buy Canadian’ movement has made it more personal,” Reimer says. “Consumers are actively looking to support businesses like ours, and they’re more aware that greenhouse produce is grown right here at home, year-round.”

He says this has also shifted the conversation away from price to the unique value proposition that Ontario-grown produce provides.

“People are thinking about reliability, food security and supporting local communities,” he says. “That’s helped greenhouse production be seen as not only consistent and high-quality but also something Canadians can feel good about choosing.”

Reimer says retailers have also taken notice and capitalized on that interest.

“We’re seeing more emphasis on highlighting Canadian-grown products, which really helps tell our story,” he says. “Overall, it’s strengthened trust and created a closer connection between growers and consumers.”

Nature Fresh Farms CEO Patrick Criteser says retailers see Ontario greenhouse-grown produce as part of a strong domestic supply.

“Consumers are asking more questions about where their food comes from, and greenhouse growing fits well with what they’re looking for: local, year-round, dependable,” he says.

“We’ve always focused on understanding how people actually shop and eat, and right now there’s clearly more interest in Canadian-grown. It just brings more visibility to what greenhouses can offer,” he adds.

Haven Greens founder and CEO Jay Willmot says this “elbows up” mentality is evolving into a long-term shift in consumer behavior.

“Canadian products are no longer viewed as a backup option but rather the gold standard for freshness and reliability,” he says.

Capturing Market Share With New Commodities

Willmot says there’s a push from consumers for Haven Greens to expand beyond greens — a bit of a mix between diversifying risk and standing out. Diversifying helps protect the operator from price volatility in a commodity but also helps position the whole Ontario greenhouse industry as growers capable of meeting a much broader demand.

“We’re seeing a growing push into soft fruits like strawberries and blueberries, leafy greens and fresh herbs, commodities that consumers want year-round but that Canada has historically imported,” he says. “These aren’t just exciting growing opportunities; they represent a real chance to capture market share that has always belonged to foreign producers.”

Reimer also says Great Lakes Greenhouses has seen interest in specialty or niche items, as well as in premium and value-added segments. This includes snackable formats and specialty varieties. This presents an opportunity for differentiation without shifting to a new commodity.

Criteser says there’s always interest in expanding offerings, but he says a lot of the focus on innovation tends to stem around how consumers use the products at home.

“The real opportunity is in doing something better — better flavor, better and more convenient eating experience, something that stands out,” he says.

Reimer also says there’s growing interest from consumers in convenience, health trends and sustainability.

“Retailers want products that tell a story and bring margin, not just volume,” he says.

And this ability to expand into new crops is possible thanks to advancements in lighting and climate control precision.

“This opens the door to crops that historically couldn’t be grown economically in Ontario,” he says.

Digital Tools and the Human Element

Technology and sustainability play a huge role in both where Ontario greenhouse production is today and where it’s going in the future. Criteser says systems to recycle water and carbon dioxide help support plant growth, but this goes beyond the buzzwords.

“We’ve talked about this for a long time as both a technology and energy efficiency story,” he says. “The goal isn’t just to use less; it’s to use what we have more intelligently.”

Nature Fresh Farms, Haven Greens and Great Lakes Greenhouses also have deployed more artificial intelligence-driven tools to help guide decisions around irrigation, lighting and greenhouse management, which helps the production team see patterns and respond more quickly.

“We see a space for advanced computers and AI to have a significant impact on the industry moving forward as these systems continue to develop at an incredible pace,” Reimer says.

But growers still play a key role in production, even with the ascent of AI.

“Human input is always required when dealing with biological organisms such as plants,” Willmot says. “However, every day we’re finding more use cases for AI to help us run the greenhouse more efficiently. We’re finding ways to optimize crop performance, manage energy use, maximize lighting use efficiently and analyze more data more accurately than ever.”

Willmot says technology has instead amplified the human element and helped Haven Greens scale production and increase yields to grow year-round.

“Things that would have taken significantly more time, labor and resources a decade ago are now done with greater speed and precision. But here’s what people often misunderstand: The technology doesn’t run itself. Behind every automated system, every sensor, every data point, is a skilled human being interpreting it, managing it and making the critical decisions that no algorithm can make on its own.”

And as for whether they work for a technology company that grows fresh produce or a grower who uses technology, Willmot, Reimer and Criteser say it is the latter.

“Technology is a big part of how we operate, but it’s there to support what we do, not define it,” Criteser says. “At the end of the day, it still comes back to how well we grow, how consistent the product is and how it performs for the customer. That’s what matters most.”

Criteser says technology will continue to be more integrated.

“There’ll be more data, more automation, more AI supporting decisions, but the grower’s role doesn’t go away; if anything, it becomes more important,” he says. “It’s really about giving growers better tools to make decisions faster and more accurately, not replacing that expertise.”

Expect to see growing integration of technology, Willmot says, for production tasks from planting to harvesting and sensors monitoring and adjusting variables such as humidity, light, carbon dioxide and nutrients in real time.

“What takes teams of people to manage today will be largely automated, faster and significantly more precise,” he says.

Greenhouse production, too, will run on renewable energy, capture and recycle water and reduce the industry’s carbon footprint.

“Making them not just productive but genuinely green,” Willmot says. “They’ll consume a fraction of the land and water that traditional outdoor farming requires while yielding significantly more.”

Strategic Roadmap for National Expansion

Willmot says indoor leafy greens are growing at a rate of 50% year over year in the U.S. and 80% year over year in Ontario. He says that while Ontario already accounts for two-thirds of Canadian greenhouse production, he thinks the base will continue to expand, but the country’s production will also expand beyond this traditional hub into Quebec and Alberta.

“While Ontario remains the engine, the growth is beginning to decentralize across the country,” he says.

Criteser agrees, saying he expects core regions such as Windsor-Essex to continue to grow infrastructure and labor, but logistics, energy availability and access to new markets will play a big factor in where other growth in the industry will come. He also points out that growth can mean a lot of things, including improving efficiencies.

“Growth isn’t just about building more,” he says. “A lot of it is about improving what you already have — getting better yields, better flavor, more efficiency out of the same footprint.”

Ontario is set to double its acreage in the next 10 years through a combination of expansions in traditional areas. Willmot says he also sees expansion in the form of established operations acquiring smaller growers to fast-track expansion and build newer, more specialized facilities.

“The Greater Toronto area and surrounding regions represent a significant untapped opportunity, particularly for leafy greens and high-value crops where proximity to urban consumers is a genuine advantage,” he says.

Willmot says in the next four to five years, the question won’t be whether greenhouse growing can feed Canada, “it’ll be how we ever managed without it.”

He says by 2030, Ontario’s greenhouse sector could have wide-ranging impacts on Canada’s food supply.

“The greenhouse of 2030 won’t just be a place where food is grown; it’ll be Canada’s most strategic agricultural asset,” he says. “Reducing reliance on imports, stabilizing prices year-round and building a level of domestic food security that outdoor farming alone simply cannot guarantee, given Canada’s climate and harsh winters.”

Your next read: Inside Ontario’s Billion-Dollar Greenhouse Surge

Agronomist in Your Pocket: How AI Is Transforming Global Pest Management

Tue, 07 Apr 2026 18:59:37 GMT

For over a decade, a dedicated team at Iowa State University has been working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and agriculture with a mission to provide farmers with the tools they need to stay ahead of an ever-changing landscape of threats. Led by Arti Singh and Soumik Sarkar, this research has culminated in the development of the PestIDBot, a sophisticated AI companion designed to act as an “expert crop advisor or extension agent in your pocket.”

By combining massive image databases with conversational AI, the team is moving agricultural protection from a reactive struggle to a proactive, precision-based science.

A Decade of Data-Driven Identification

The core of the technology lies in two specialized applications: Insect ID and Weed ID, the result of training massive AI models on staggering amounts of data. The Insect ID app has been trained on 16 million images and can identify roughly 4,000 different species, ranging from common pollinators and predators to invasive threats. Similarly, the Weed ID app utilizes 15 million images to identify 1,600 weed species, including noxious and invasive varieties.

While these models are global in scope, they have been fine-tuned specifically for regions.

“If a farmer in Iowa does a web search on a pest, they might get information relevant to the Southern U.S. that isn’t applicable to an Iowa farmer,” Singh says. By narrowing the model’s focus to local threats and incorporating management practices vetted by University Extension scientists, the tool provides personalized, actionable information tailored to the user’s specific location.

Image of spotted lantern fly egg masses on tree bark is identified in PestIDBot.

(Image courtesy of Iowa State University)

From Identification to Conversation

The true breakthrough of the PestIDBot is the integration of identification with a conversational chatbot. In the field, a farmer can take a real-time photo of an unknown insect or upload an image taken previously. Once the AI identifies the pest — even in early stages, such as egg masses — the chatbot allows the user to ask contextual follow-up questions.

“Rather than searching for a human expert while the clock is ticking, you can ask your first questions directly to the app,” Sarkar says.

Users can inquire about treatment timing, the necessity of spraying or specific management steps based on their observations. For example, if the app identifies the eggs of an invasive species like the spotted lanternfly, it doesn’t just provide taxonomic details; it can advise the user to contact specific state agencies, such as the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

Solving the Green-on-Green Challenge

Building an AI that works in a controlled lab is one thing, but the field presents chaotic variables. Sarkar notes that early models lacked the robustness to handle cases like green-on-green (pests on leaves) or brown-on-brown (pests on bark or soil) scenarios. To ensure the system is trustworthy and reliable, the team implemented strict guardrails to prevent hallucinations — where an AI confidently provides an incorrect answer.

These safety measures include out-of-distribution detection, which allows the AI to recognize when it is looking at something it wasn’t trained for (like a human face) and simply say, “I don’t know.” Furthermore, when the model is unsure, it is programmed to provide several likely options rather than a single potentially wrong identification, allowing the farmer to consult with experts using a narrowed set of possibilities.

Shown from left, Iowa State University’s Arti Singh and Soumik Sarkar are part of a team working at the intersection of artificial intelligence and agriculture to provide farmers with the tools they need to stay ahead of an ever-changing landscape of threats.

(Photo courtesy of Iowa State University)

The Global Horizon: The BRIDGE Project

The next frontier for the team is the AI Engage (BRIDGE) project, funded by the National Science Foundation. While insects and weeds are well documented, identifying crop diseases caused by bacteria, viruses and fungi is a much tougher problem due to the limited quality and expert-verified data.

By partnering with researchers in Australia, Japan and India, the team is building a global dataset of disease images. This international collaboration is critical for biosecurity.

“Threats emerging in Africa or Asia will eventually show up on our shores,” Sarkar warns.

By training models on global data now, U.S. farmers can be prepared for future threats before they arrive, shifting the agricultural industry from a reactive stance to a proactive one.

Vision for Sustainable Stewardship

Beyond technical identification, the team is driven by a passion for sustainability and the future of the agricultural workforce. By enabling precision-based farming, the PestIDBot can help farmers pinpoint exactly which part of a field needs treatment. This hyperprecise approach reduces the need for blanket chemical spraying, lowering input costs for farmers while protecting water systems and overall environmental health.

Finally, Singh and Sarkar are using this technology to make “agriculture cool again” for the next generation. Through workshops and gamified modules for K-12 and 4-H youth, they are fostering land stewardship and encouraging young people to see themselves as future innovators in both ag and AI. As Singh reflects, empowering a kid in a front yard to identify an invasive species can be the first step in a statewide defense against agricultural threats.

How Produce-Native AI is Optimizing the Full Grocery Enterprise

Fri, 03 Apr 2026 10:32:04 GMT

For years, grocery tech was built for the predictable aisles of center store and retrofitted for produce — usually with messy results. Now, Afresh is flipping the script. After mastering the chaos of the fresh perimeter, CEO Matt Schwartz is expanding the company’s AI platform to every department in the enterprise, proving if you can solve for delicate raspberries, you can solve for anything.

With Afresh’s expanded platform, grocers can now manage replenishment, demand forecasting, inventory management and distribution center buying across every department on a single grocery-native AI platform.

What does this mean for the retailer’s bottom line? To learn more, The Packer recently connected with Schwartz.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

Traditionally, grocery tech has started in center store and then adapted to fresh. You did the opposite. Now that you’re moving into the packaged goods space, what is a lesson learned from produce that is making your center store AI better than traditional systems?

Schwartz: Produce is one of the hardest environments in the store, and it forced us to build a system that can make accurate decisions even when the input data is unreliable.

That’s the first lesson: grocery data is messy. If you take it at face value, you’ll make bad decisions.

In fresh, that’s obvious. There are no barcodes, variable pack sizes and demand that shifts with weather, quality and seasonality. In center store, the data looks cleaner on paper, but the same issues still show up: inventory drift from shrink, mispicks and execution errors at the shelf.

The second lesson is that static rules don’t work. A single forecast and a single inventory number aren’t enough when both are often wrong. You need a system that accounts for uncertainty. What if demand is higher? What if inventory is lower? And [the system] still makes the right decision.

Most systems were built the opposite way, [with] clean data assumptions, rigid logic [and] one answer. In reality, inventory is often only 50% to 60% accurate, and those systems break as soon as that assumption is off.

We built for that reality in fresh — making decisions that hold up even when the inputs are wrong.

That’s why it translates so well to center store. The variability is lower, but the data is still imperfect and the same approach produces better decisions.

Does managing replenishment, demand forecasting, inventory management and distribution center buying across every department on a single grocery-native AI platform improve a retailer’s profitability? If so, how?

It improves profitability by reducing coordination gaps and eliminating manual overhead.

Today, fresh and center store run on separate systems, with different data, different forecasts, different order recommendations. No one really has a clear view of how those decisions interact, especially when it comes to cross-merchandising. When everything runs on one system, that changes.

A simple example is promotions. A retailer runs a “family dinner for $15” meal deal that includes pasta, sauce and a baguette. There’s no
produce in the bundle, but customers add salad, tomatoes or a cucumber.

Without visibility, produce reacts after the shelf is already light. With it, the system adjusts ahead of time, and just as importantly, brings orders back down when the promotion ends, without someone having to go in and fix it.

The other piece is overhead. Legacy systems require teams of analysts to constantly tune forecasts for seasonality, promotions and holidays. That’s ongoing maintenance. With our system, that work largely goes away. The models update as conditions change, so corporate teams can spend more time on strategy and less time tuning forecasts.

Matt Schwartz, CEO of Afresh, says produce is one of the hardest environments in the store, which forced the company to build a system that can make accurate decisions even when the input data is unreliable.

(Photo courtesy of Afresh)

As Afresh expands beyond fresh to include everything from shampoo to frozen pizza, how will you ensure continued innovation focused on fresh produce and other fresh items?

Afresh is a fresh-first AI company, and that doesn’t change. We started there because fresh is the most complex part of the store — and it’s still where we push the hardest. Expanding to center store isn’t a shift away from that. It’s the same system applied more broadly.

“Today, produce teams see an item sell faster than expected and have to figure out why. That delay is what leads to missed orders and empty shelves. When every item in the store runs on the same system, you can see what’s driving that demand.”

Matt Schwartz, CEO of Afresh

The core problems we solve — bad inventory, demand variability, execution gaps — exist in every department. What changes is the context.

When more of the store runs on the platform, fresh decisions actually get better. The system can see promotions, traffic patterns and how customers shop across the full basket.

This isn’t about becoming a general retail system. It’s about extending a fresh-first architecture across the store in a way that continues to improve fresh.

You mentioned a 95% or more adherence rate. How will produce managers benefit from using a unified platform with other department managers? How does this improve or change the daily workflow for a produce clerk?

Our 95%+ adherence rate means store teams trust Afresh across all departments.

For produce managers, the workflow doesn’t fundamentally change, but the quality of the recommendation does. Now those recommendations reflect what’s happening across the entire store, not just produce. That leads to fewer misses with fewer out-of-stocks and less shrink.

There’s also a labor benefit. When all departments run on the same platform, teams can flex more easily. If a produce manager is out, someone without years of department-specific experience can still place a good order because the system carries that historical context.

And at the corporate level, produce performance is no longer isolated. It’s visible alongside every other department, which drives more consistent focus and investment.

How does having every item in the store on one platform specifically help the produce department? Are there additional benefits to cross-merchandising strategies throughout the store here as well?

Today, produce teams see an item sell faster than expected and have to figure out why. That delay is what leads to missed orders and empty shelves. When every item in the store runs on the same system, you can see what’s driving that demand.

For example, if a retailer features ranch dressing on an endcap, more customers buy carrots and celery to go with it. Without that visibility, the system just sees carrots selling faster than expected, and stores react after they’ve already sold through. With it, the system knows the promotion is happening and increases orders ahead of time.

The same thing happens with substitutions. If a packaged item goes out of stock, customers shift into fresh alternatives. Without that signal, produce teams chase the demand late. With it, they adjust early and, just as importantly, reduce orders again once the packaged item is back in stock.

Can you share an example of how a produce buyer at the DC makes a better decision because they now have visibility into the inventory levels of the non-perishable aisles?

A simple example is a short-term supply issue in center store. Let’s say a top-selling jarred salsa is out of stock in a region for 10 days.
That doesn’t always change behavior, as customers may switch to another jarred option. But in some cases, you do see a small shift into in-house made pico or fresh alternatives.

The challenge for the produce buyer is knowing whether that change is real and how long it’s going to last. Without that context, they might see a slight lift and either ignore it or overreact. With visibility, they understand the cause. That allows them to make a small, measured adjustment and, more importantly, to unwind it at the right time.

For fresh items with a 3- to 5-day shelf life, timing matters more than the initial increase. The risk isn’t missing a bit of upside; it’s being left with excess inventory after the demand disappears.

Afresh is known for reducing food waste. How will expanding to center store and general merchandise help retailers to reduce waste throughout the store?

Afresh has prevented more than 200 million lb. of food waste since founding, and most of that has been in fresh, where waste rates are highest. But the underlying problem is the same across the store.

In fresh, waste shows up quickly as spoilage. In center store, it shows up more slowly through excess inventory, markdowns or discontinued products that don’t move. In both cases, it comes from ordering too much or ordering at the wrong time.

When forecasting improves and inventory is more accurate, products move through the system faster. That means less spoilage in fresh, and less excess and fewer markdowns in center store.

Do you have a retailer success story you can share from the produce perspective? How do you see this success evolve as Afresh tech expands to the whole store?

Across our retail partners, we consistently see the same pattern in produce: shrink comes down, sales go up, inventory turns improve and store teams adopt the system quickly because it earns their trust. In many cases, that means double-digit shrink reduction, sales lift and meaningfully faster turns within the first few months.

As the platform expands across the store, that impact compounds. Retailers don’t have to rip out their existing systems or go through a new, heavy implementation to get there. They can expand incrementally, adding new departments onto the same platform or integrating Afresh as the decision engine behind their existing tools.

In practice, that means the store teams don’t have to learn a completely new system, and corporate teams don’t have to rebuild their tech stack.

Your next read: Afresh Launches Suite of Solutions Designed to Help Grocers Maximize Sales, Minimize Waste

Maryland Says 'No' to Surveillance Pricing: Poll Reveals Broad Support

Thu, 02 Apr 2026 19:42:32 GMT

A new poll released by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) revealed Marylanders are deeply skeptical of the high-tech makeover coming to grocery store aisles. According to the data, a bipartisan majority of voters support a ban on electronic shelf labels (ESLs) , viewing the technology as a catalyst for price hikes rather than a tool for consumer convenience.

The survey, conducted by GBAO Strategies, arrives as Gov. Wes Moore and state lawmakers deliberate on legislation that would prohibit the use of ESLs and the practice of “surveillance pricing” in Maryland retail environments.

Overwhelming Public Skepticism

The poll results paint a picture of a restless electorate already struggling with the cost of living. Nearly 80% of Marylanders surveyed reported a negative view of the U.S. economy, with 71% specifically worried about their household grocery bills.

When asked about the digital transformation of the shelf edge:

69% of voters believe switching from paper tags to electronic labels will cause grocery prices to increase.
73% of voters believe surveillance pricing — the use of AI and personal data to set individualized prices — will drive costs higher.
68% of Marylanders support a total ban on this technology in grocery stores, a sentiment UFCW notes remains strong across party lines.

“No Marylander is insulated from the devastating effects of record-high grocery prices,” says Ademola Oyefeso, vice president of UFCW International. “Electronic shelf labels, and the discriminatory practice of surveillance pricing that they enable, threaten to drive costs even higher.

Oyefeso continues: “The results of this poll confirm that Marylanders know the dangers of electronic shelf labels and surveillance pricing and expect their lawmakers to take action. Maryland has a chance to get ahead of this corporate exploitation before it becomes common practice. UFCW applauds the lawmakers who are standing up for consumers and workers.”

The Surveillance Factor

The heart of the opposition lies in how the technology functions. While retailers like Walmart — which plans to digitize all store prices by 2026 — argue ESLs improve efficiency and accuracy, critics point to the infrastructure behind the screens.

UFCW highlights recent corporate patents that would allow retailers to use a shopper’s personal data, ZIP code or even identity to update prices at scale and in real time. This instant price-changing capability is what labor leaders call a predatory practice.

“Food is a necessity, and no one should be paying more for milk or eggs based on their identity or ZIP code,” says Mark Federici, president of UFCW Local 400. “UFCW members are at the frontlines of the affordability crisis, and they are demanding action from their lawmakers. Keeping electronic shelf labels out of our grocery stores is vital to lowering the cost of groceries for Marylanders.”

A Threat to Union Jobs

Beyond the checkout counter, the poll underscores concerns regarding the workforce. Sixty-one percent of respondents stated they do not trust grocery stores to use this technology responsibly.

For the 800,000 grocery workers represented by UFCW, ESLs represent more than just a digital screen; they represent a potential reduction in human labor. Union leaders argue these systems are designed to replace the skilled work of grocery clerks, leaving remaining staff to manage the fallout from “rightfully angry shoppers” confused by fluctuating prices.

“UFCW members understand the toll high grocery prices take on lives. They see it at the register, in the aisles and in their own grocery bills,” says Jason Chorpenning, president of UFCW Local 27. “Electronic shelf labels will only hike costs higher. With the ability to change prices at a moment’s notice, ESLs make it nearly impossible for families to stick to a budget. I commend the lawmakers who are fighting to keep this predatory technology out of our grocery stores.”

National Momentum

Maryland is currently one of 12 states participating in UFCW’s Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs Campaign. The initiative seeks to establish legislative guardrails against AI-driven retail practices before they become the industry standard.

As the debate moves through the Maryland General Assembly, the polling data suggests lawmakers who support the ban are aligned with a significant majority of their constituents. The message from Maryland voters appears clear: In an era of economic uncertainty, they prefer the transparency of a paper tag over the unpredictability of an algorithm.

Your Next Read: Walmart and Unions Clash Over the Future of Digital Price Tags

Walmart and Unions Clash Over the Future of Digital Price Tags

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 18:55:38 GMT

Editor’s Note: The story was updated April 3 with comments from Walmart.

As Walmart accelerates its plan to install Electronic Shelf Labels (ESLs) across thousands of U.S. stores by the end of 2026, the grocery aisle has become the front line of a national debate. To retailers and tech analysts, these digital tags are a necessary evolution to combat labor shortages and supply chain volatility. To labor unions and a growing cohort of lawmakers, they are the connective tissue of a predatory puzzle known as surveillance pricing.

The conflict has reached a boiling point with the launch of the Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs Campaign by United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW). Backed by federal legislation like the Stop Price Gouging in Grocery Stores Act, the movement seeks to ban ESLs in large retail environments. What remains is a fundamental disagreement over whether this technology serves the shopper or exploits the family budget.

The Union’s Warning: “Surveillance Pricing” and Job Loss

For the 1.2 million members of the UFCW, ESLs represent a dual threat: the loss of privacy for consumers and the loss of livelihoods for workers. At a recent press conference in Minnesota, union leaders painted a grim picture of a future where bread and milk prices spike the moment a blizzard is forecast.

“The second the weatherman forecasts a blizzard, companies can use electronic shelf labels to hike prices,” says Diana Tacidamer, secretary-treasurer for UFCW Local 1189. “Corporations want you to believe that ESLs will only help the customer ... but they’re patenting the technology to allow algorithms to change prices in real time.”

The union’s concern extends beyond the checkout line. In Minnesota alone, labor leaders estimate the automation of pricing could jeopardize 1,000 “family-sustaining” union jobs. Traditionally, pricing coordinators — workers who manually update paper tags — possess a deep knowledge of the store’s inventory. By automating this task, unions argue retailers are not just cutting hours but are also removing the human element that helps shoppers navigate the aisles.

“ESLs threaten to take work away from workers while leaving us to handle rightfully angry customers,” says Jane St. Louis, a grocery worker in Maryland.

This sentiment is echoed by Milton Jones, UFCW International president, who argues the technology allows corporations to “change prices in front of [shoppers’] eyes just because they live in the wrong zip code or are a new parent.”

(Screenshot via press conference )

The Industry’s Defense: Survival in a Low-Margin World

On the other side of the aisle, retail analysts like Greg Buzek, president and chief AI officer for IHL Group, view the union’s surveillance narrative as a fundamental misunderstanding of retail economics. According to Buzek, the industry is currently “hemorrhaging” due to labor shortages and a $1.7 trillion “inventory distortion” problem — the cost of products being out of stock or spoiling on the shelf.

“The idea that retailers plan to adjust pricing on the fly per customer ... is totally bogus,” Buzek asserts.

He argues the primary driver for ESLs is operational efficiency. In a standard grocery store, changing thousands of paper tags manually is a “cost center” that diverts labor away from “profit centers” like the deli or prepared foods sections.

“What’s important to know about Walmart is that we are a purpose-driven company, and our purpose of saving people money so they can live better guides our pricing strategy,” says Brooks Forrest, vice president of associate tools for Walmart. “The way that comes to life is in ‘Everyday Low Price,’ which means being consistent for our customers. Typically, if we execute price changes, we do so overnight when our stores are closed to ensure that consistency and trust.”

While critics fear the technology allows for instantaneous price hikes, Forrest noted that the digital system actually has built-in safeguards. “Our stores have the autonomy to change prices only in favor of a customer, meaning they can only take the price down,” Forrest says. “In the tools and technology that connect to the digital shelf label, [store associates] actually cannot take prices up; they can only take them down.”

Buzek notes ESLs allow retailers to implement dynamic discounting — lowering the price of meat or produce as it nears its expiration date to prevent it from ending up in a dumpster.

“If I can have a system that knows [a product] expires in two days, I can drop the price 20% and sell it rather than throwing it away,” he says. From this perspective, ESLs are a tool for sustainability and waste reduction, not a weapon for price gouging.

Regarding the surveillance aspect, Buzek clarifies most camera-based systems at the shelf edge are designed for inventory tracking, not tracking people. “The camera is looking at the shelf to see if the product is there,” he says, adding that retailers who tried to surge price milk during a storm would face a PR nightmare no profit margin could justify.

Greg Buzek, president and chief AI officer for IHL Group clarifies that most camera-based systems at the shelf edge are designed for inventory tracking, not tracking people.

(Photo courtesy of IHL Group)

The Legislative Battleground

The debate has moved from the store floor to the halls of power. In Washington, D.C., Senators Ben Ray Luján and Jeff Merkley have introduced legislation to prohibit price gouging and ban ESLs in large grocery stores. The bill would also require the disclosure of facial recognition technology.

“Americans should not be targeted with higher costs simply for trying to put food on the table,” Luján says.

The federal push is being mirrored at the state level in New York, Oklahoma, Washington and beyond. These bills typically require analog paper pricing for stores over 10,000 sq. ft., effectively stalling the digital rollout.

Washington State Rep. Mary Fosse summarizes the legislative intent: “If two people are in the same store buying the same item, they should pay the same price.”

Lawmakers fear without analog protections, the grocery store will become a place of algorithmic mystery where prices fluctuate based on hidden data points.

“ESLs threaten to take work away from workers, while leaving us to handle rightfully angry customers,” says Jane St. Louis, a grocery worker in Maryland.

(Photo: Jill Dutton)

The Privacy Paradox

A central point of contention is the hardware itself. Modern ESLs often include Bluetooth sensors and can be paired with AI-driven cameras. While Buzek maintains these are for inventory and “stock-to-light” systems (where a tag flashes to help a worker find a product for an online order), the UFCW views them as the infrastructure for “Retail Media Networks.”

In these networks, the shelf acts as an advertising platform. If a shopper lingers in front of a specific brand of cereal, the store’s data systems record that behavior. Unions argue this data harvesting is the first step toward personalized pricing, where a loyal shopper might be shown a different price than a one-time visitor.

Buzek counters that while retailers do want to reward loyalty, it is almost always through discounts, not hikes.

“The only thing I’ve ever heard any retailer even contemplate was ... a better price because you were a more loyal customer,” he says.

A Crisis of Trust

At its heart, the battle over ESLs is a crisis of trust. Retailers, facing razor-thin margins and a desperate need for labor efficiency, see digital tags as a lifeline. They point to Europe and Asia, where ESLs are standard and have not led to the dystopian surge-pricing scenarios critics fear.

However, for the UFCW and its supporters, the lack of transparency in AI algorithms makes the technology too dangerous to trust. They see a future where the simple act of buying groceries is governed by a black box that prioritizes corporate profit over the common good.

As legislation moves through statehouses and Congress, the grocery industry faces a pivotal choice: Find a way to implement technology that respects both the privacy of the consumer and the dignity of the worker, or face a total door slam on the digital tools of the future. For now, the Affordable Groceries and Good Jobs Campaign has ensured the price on the shelf is more than just a number — it is a political statement.

Your Next Read:

Reservoir Farms Targets Crop-Specific Innovations to Bridge the Ag Tech Gap

Sun, 29 Mar 2026 23:04:40 GMT

Last month, the Reservoir officially opened its innovation hub for specialty crops, Reservoir Farms in Salinas, Calif. Founder and CEO Danny Bernstein says since the first announcement last June, there has been much forward momentum.

Bernstein sat down with The Packer to talk about the future of the Reservoir and to share some success stories of some of the startups involved in the incubator.

Shift Toward Crop Specific Solutions

Looking to the future, Bernstein says a lot of the conversations at the Reservoir have focused on becoming more crop-specific and having more nuanced conversations at a crop level. Bernstein says this Producer Program, which will be announced in greater detail soon, looks to a niche spot in the ag tech ecosystem.

“How do we better serve the end grower, the end producer, the end shipper with more specific programs and narratives that speak at their level, which is more crop specific?” he says.

Take a commodity like strawberries, Bernstein says. A large strawberry grower likely has some internal proprietary research and development, but there’s a strong need for crop-specific solutions, and that’s where the Reservoir sees the opportunity to assist.

“It’s not critical enough to be proprietary, but it’s critical enough to be prioritized and therefore needs the industry,” he says.

Bernstein says he sees this scenario playing out similarly for key crops such as vegetables and leafy greens, as well as strawberries, in Salinas, viticulture in Sonoma, Calif., etc. He says the Reservoir team is working to pull together what a crop-specific ag tech program would look like and then bring the right stakeholders to the table.

“We want to have a leafy greens-specific ag tech program, a strawberry-specific ag tech program, and then eventually that becomes brassicas and maybe even a click down further into just broccoli,” he says.

While the Reservoir is working to recruit ag tech companies into the incubators, Bernstein says the team is also looking at what ag tech companies are a fit for these more nuanced offerings.

Bernstein says that the Reservoir is engaging with more than 300 companies all around the world; some are a part of the incubator programs, but he says the larger number speaks to the breadth of the Reservoir.

“We can share a pipeline of 300 companies with companies with the growers that we’re actively engaged with,” he says. “We can categorize [the companies]. We can talk about their different technology readiness levels. We can say which crops they’re focused on. We can share a pretty detailed matrix. Then, we can also set up structured introductions.”

Meeting Growers Where They Are

Looking ahead, Bernstein says he sees a strong need for field marketing, which he says ag tech is a little behind in getting on board with.

“We’re wondering if a little bit more of meeting the grower where they are [is needed], thinking really crop-specific,” he says.

Bernstein envisions almost a concert tour with solutions targeted specifically at the predominant crops in a geo-location.

“Bringing the right companies to the right crop at the right time in their cycle — that’s another element that we’re thinking a lot about, that we’re really trying to put the producer first in our model,” he says.

And Bernstein says the ag tech industry desperately needs to accelerate technology outcomes for the specialty crop grower.

“I feel like the ag tech buyer is becoming more discerning and has a pretty good risk appetite, because they are getting better and better at assessing the efficacy of ag tech,” he says. “This is an area that we want to lean into more and more with our producer partners, and that’s part of why we’re doing this program.”

Proving the Ag Tech Work Ethic

Another thing that Bernstein says has come out of the Reservoir is debunking this myth that the work ethic of ag tech companies is different from that of the growers those companies hope to create solutions for. But he says the team at Agtom, a farm automation platform for irrigation, fertigation and more, has proved that being a part of the Reservoir incubator and having real-time access to specialty crops has its benefits.

Bernstein says the team works six days a week, working from around 9 a.m. to nearly 3 a.m. the next morning. He says the team says the Reservoir has been an ideal working environment, with the ability to test in strawberry fields and make modifications immediately.

“They have the work ethic. They have the drive,” he says. “We’ve been able to provide a platform with a work environment that allows them to accelerate.”

Another one, Bernstein says, is BHF, a Canadian ag robotics company. He says as a result of participating in the Reservoir’s incubator, growers have been more likely to trial the company’s solutions. He says it speaks volumes to how important ag tech companies see being boots on the ground in California. He adds that BHF has trials set up with major vegetable growers in the Salinas area thanks to this approach.

“We’ve seen not only companies be able to get themselves on rails with being inside of our environment, but we’ve also seen some acceleration of commercialization, because, basically, folks are able to show that they’re leading with humility, that they’re integrating,” Bernstein says. “And BHF, as a Canadian company, basically said, ‘We need to be in California to accelerate,’ and now it’s starting to happen.”

The Vertical Farms Changing the Face of Rehabilitation in South Carolina and California Prisons

Thu, 26 Mar 2026 20:26:34 GMT

Editor’s note: This story is part of an ongoing Sowing Change series about urban farming.

In the volatile landscapes of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, David Flynn learned that a road is a lifeline for a struggling economy. Years later, as the CEO of AmplifiedAg, he is applying that same mission-driven mindset to a different kind of isolated environment: the U.S. correctional system.

By deploying high-tech vertical farms inside prison walls, AmplifiedAg is creating a new path for incarcerated individuals, one that leads away from recidivism and toward specialized careers in the growing ag-tech sector. Flynn says agriculture reentry programs have the lowest recidivism rate — at 19% —among any other programming.

AmplifiedAg has spent years honing the modular approach to indoor farming, using upcycled refrigerated containers to grow produce in environments where nature has largely bowed out. While the technology is sophisticated — involving proprietary internet-connected sensors and climate control — the most significant impact of this work is currently being felt behind the barbed wire of the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C., and the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla, Calif.

The path to these prison yards began years ago in Afghanistan. During his military service, Flynn observed how the local economy in the Arghandab district relied on a fragile irrigation system to sustain its world-famous pomegranate orchards.

“My view of combat was about 30% violence and 70% everything else that you do,” Flynn says. “Part of that ‘everything else’ was trying to help the local economy.”

He saw firsthand that food security was the cornerstone of a stable society, a lesson that now drives AmplifiedAg’s mission to provide for underserved and isolated populations.

“Our system isn’t just focused on labor,” says AmplifiedAg CEO David Flynn. “It’s designed to create skill sets that make somebody attractive for employment on the other side.”

(Photo courtesy of AmplifiedAg)

In South Carolina, that mission took the form of a partnership with the state’s corrections department. Director of Agriculture Rick Doran was looking for a way to modernize the state’s prison farms, moving beyond traditional row crops into the future of agribusiness. However, placing a high-tech, internet-connected farm inside a maximum-security prison presented a unique set of logistical headaches.

“The one that caught us off guard the most was just the software access,” Flynn says.

In an environment where internet use is strictly controlled to prevent illicit communication, AmplifiedAg had to work closely with prison IT professionals to create a “restricted pipe.” This ensures the farm’s sensors can communicate with the cloud, but the participants cannot wander elsewhere on the web.

“We have to provide them with a URL that is specifically for the farm’s control,” Flynn says, noting that the security of the facility always remains the top priority.

The program, known as Cultivating Futures, is designed to be more than a source of labor. By the time the women at the correctional facilities complete the program, they have been immersed in a curriculum that covers everything from horticulture and food safety to the business of entrepreneurship. Flynn is adamant that the goal is to create a professional bridge to the outside world.

“Our system isn’t just focused on labor,” he says. “It’s designed to create skill sets that make somebody attractive for employment on the other side.”

A classroom inside the Camille Griffin Graham Correctional Institution.

(Photo courtesy of AmplifiedAg)

To ensure that attractiveness translates into a paycheck, the program has secured letters of intent from the Palmetto Agribusiness Council, ensuring that graduates get a fair shot at interviews upon release.

The benefits are as much psychological as they are economic. A study published by the National Institutes of Health found that prison gardening and farming programs function as a “restorative sanctuary,” significantly reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety among participants. And the National Library of Medicine shows exposure to plants , green space and gardening is beneficial to mental and physical health, reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression, thus improving daily life behind bars and overall well-being.

The production capacity of the corrections container farm model is as impressive as its mission, yielding approximately 48,000 pounds of fresh, nutrient-dense greens annually. This harvest directly enhances the diet of the incarcerated population by being served in the prison cafeteria, and it extends its reach into the surrounding community.

Solving for the Impossible

While the work in South Carolina and California is a primary focus, AmplifiedAg continues to test the limits of modular farming in other underserved and extreme spaces.

Saltwater solutions — The company helped enable Heron Farms, the first saltwater vertical farm, which successfully grows sea beans using seawater.
Scientific research — Working with USDA, AmplifiedAg’s systems are used to study cultivars like cucumbers, peppers and rice to help traditional field growers combat pathogens.
Hyperlocal resilience — Unlike massive warehouse farms, Flynn argues the container model is more resilient because it provides a hyperlocal solution that complements traditional agriculture rather than trying to compete with it.

“Indoor agriculture is not designed to compete with traditional agriculture, but more so to complement it and provide an off-season and year-round type of solution,” Flynn says.

For the women in South Carolina and California, that solution isn’t just about the lettuce; it’s about the growth that happens when a person is given the tools to harvest a new life.

Your Next Read:

Harps Food Stores Aims to Redefine the Grocery Basket With AI-Driven Personalization

Tue, 24 Mar 2026 20:18:47 GMT

The digital divide in grocery retail is narrowing as Harps Food Stores prepares to launch SmartMeals across its entire network. This decision follows a broad deployment of the platform across the Associated Wholesale Grocers’ member network , signaling a major shift for independent grocers gaining access to high-tech tools once reserved for national giants.

Moving beyond traditional digital coupons, this rollout integrates sophisticated AI directly into Harps’ existing loyalty and web platforms to turn meal inspiration into a localized shopping list in seconds.

“Harps has always focused on delivering the best possible experience for our customers and our communities,” says David Ganoung, chief marketing officer of Harps Food Stores. “Fresh, especially produce, is at the heart of how our customers plan meals, and SmartMeals brings that to life in a more meaningful way. By connecting personalized meal planning with what’s in stock in our stores, we look forward to making it easier for shoppers to discover fresh ingredients and build meals around quality produce.”

Personalized Planning and Real-Time Inventory

The platform, powered by Breez AI, functions as a digital concierge that understands household size, dietary restrictions and specific budgets. Unlike generic recipe sites, SmartMeals syncs with Harps’ live inventory to ensure every suggested ingredient is actually on the shelf at the shopper’s local store.

“People are thinking more carefully about what they eat, and they expect the tools they use to keep up,” says Tal Zlotnitsky, founder and CEO of Breez AI. “When a shopper tells SmartMeals they want to eat heart-healthy or focus on fresh ingredients, that’s exactly what they get, consistently, without having to repeat themselves.”

The SmartMeals deployment at Harps will integrate directly with the company’s existing digital infrastructure, including Birdzi, Harps’ customer loyalty platform, and Webstop, its webpage provider. That integration connects personalized meal planning, digital savings and future online ordering with each store’s real-time inventory and customer loyalty data, giving Harps shoppers a seamless path from meal inspiration to purchase, according to the company.

SmartMeals generates personalized meal plans, recipes and cooking instructions in seconds, based on each shopper’s household size, dietary preferences and budget. It automatically builds a shopping list using products currently in stock at their local Harps store, applies available digital savings and highlights store brands and private-label items. It also creates a personalized, reshoppable library of preferred meals for each customer.

“Harps has always focused on delivering the best possible experience for our customers and our communities,” Ganoung says. “SmartMeals allows us to combine that commitment with cutting-edge technology, giving our customers personalized meal inspiration while making it easier to shop our stores.”

The rollout is part of a broader technology initiative led by AWG to give independent grocers access to advanced digital tools.

SmartMeals includes a fully integrated retail media module, built by Breez AI, that creates high-intent CPG placement opportunities directly inside the shopping experience. When a shopper builds a meal plan, sponsored products can appear as featured ingredients or entire meals matched to their household profile — on a shopping list they are about to shop in-store or order online. For CPG brands, that is among the most targeted placements in grocery retail. For independent grocers, it is a revenue stream that has historically flowed only to the largest chains.

Coming soon, SmartMeals will also deliver personalized meal recommendations back to shoppers through their loyalty program after each trip, creating a second high-intent touchpoint for CPG brands at the moment shoppers are most ready to plan their next basket.

“Independent grocers are the backbone of communities across the country, and our mission at AWG is to ensure they have access to the innovative tools that larger retailers do,” says Shelly Moore, chief information officer of AWG. “SmartMeals helps level the playing field by giving retailers like Harps a powerful way to personalize the shopping experience, driving customer loyalty and basket size. It also opens a new chapter in how CPG brands can partner with independent grocers — placing their products inside a high-intent, personalized shopping experience rather than just relying on traditional promotions.”

“Shoppers are already using AI to decide what to cook,” Zlotnitsky says. “Harps is making sure that decision happens inside their brand, connected to their inventory and their loyalty program. Every week that plays out, Harps is capturing a greater share of the basket, building loyalty and generating retail media revenue that used to be out of reach for independent grocers. The retailers who move now will look back on this as the moment the game changed.”

The rollout will be structured as a phased deployment, beginning in the early summer with an initial group of 20 to 25 stores before expanding across the broader Harps network in subsequent months. The initiative will be led internally by Ganoung and Sarah Thacker, director of advertising and communications.

South Mill Champs' Lewis Macleod on Why Mushroom Automation is No Longer Optional

Thu, 19 Mar 2026 22:35:15 GMT

Mushrooms are a challenging crop to grow, doubling in size every day. There is a fine line between a mushroom that is ready to be picked and one that is past its prime, and this is where the potential for automation comes in, says Lewis Macleod, CEO of South Mill Champs.

Macleod joined “The Packer Podcast” to discuss automation in the mushroom industry.

“The challenge when it comes to picking mushrooms is making sure you pick the mushroom at the right time before it opens but also at the right time so it’s grown to be the optimum size that mushrooms are going to grow,” he says. “The challenge of growing mushrooms is every mushroom is different.”

He says it’s a fine line between the optimum time to pick a mushroom and one with gills that have opened and flattened out and has become too mature.

“Once it’s opened, the value of that crop is 20% to 25% of what it was beforehand,” he says. “The value of a product that’s become mature is below the cost to grow. So, it’s fundamental that you pick that crop at the right time. If you don’t have the labor, you’re really out of business.”

It’s this distinction between the optimum time to pick and too late that requires an incredibly skilled workforce.

“One of the challenges you have in the industry is this is not an unskilled labor job,” he says. “This is a job that requires nine, often 12, weeks of training to really require dexterity, and it’s also a repetitive job. It’s also a very difficult job.”

Labor is also a costly portion of growing mushrooms, he says, which can vary between 30% and 50%, and there’s also the ergonomics of picking, which can be harder for workers depending on the type of growing system.

While labor has been abundant in the U.S. in the last 20 to 30 years, it’s been a greater challenge in Canada and Europe, which has forced mushroom growers to modernize both infrastructure and automation.

Automation, Macleod says, increases efficiency and therefore helps reduce the overall cost of goods, which he says is critical as mushrooms compete against different commodities to fill consumers’ shopping carts.

“It’s simple math: When you’ve got labor as such a high percentage of your cost of goods and labor inflation exists, the cost of your product is increasing greater than maybe some of the competitive products that mushrooms compete against there on the shelf space,” he says. “This need to automate is really to allow it to compete against its alternative price on the shelf space.”

Macleod says the potential with artificial intelligence and machine learning with automation is high. Not only can automation allow for more fine-tuned picking of a bed more than once, but the robots will also pick continuously, which will boost quality.

“The opportunity to improve yield is really, really important when it comes to quality,” he says. “The great thing here is you can ensure the specification of what you committed to that customer is what goes into the pack.”

And coupled with cold-chain technology, the mushroom can be stored at the optimum temperature to provide the best product to the end consumer.

For the U.S. mushroom industry to reap those benefits, Macleod says, many growers need to upgrade to more modern production styles that are essentially more robot-ready. In Europe and Canada, more than 90% of growers use the Dutch production style, whereas in the U.S., that number is around 25% to 30%.

“There’s this transition that has to happen within the U.S. — to transition from old infrastructure to new infrastructure, to allow automation to happen in the U.S.,” he says.

Innov8.ag Turns Harvest Data Into a Morning Playbook

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 23:28:10 GMT

Innov8.ag has released its HarvestReplay, a service that transforms data into a decision-making tool. It looks at an operation’s labor, crop production and harvest management and provides daily, weekly, monthly and seasonal insights.

The company says HarvestReplay delivers these insights into online visualizations and customized daily audio briefings with three key features:

Replay history — Deep, retrospective analysis in geospatial views that turns multiyear harvest and labor records into reports and benchmarks showing true cost per unit, block and variety performance and the economics of past harvest decisions.
Replay live — Same‑day and in‑day feedback layered on GPS labor tracking, with benchmarks and alerts to flag issues like station congestion, slowdowns or misallocated crews so managers can reassign in the same shift.
Replay podcast — An artificial intelligence-generated, multilingual, interactive private audio intelligence briefing built from a grower’s own harvest data, tailored for each key farm role, delivered daily, weekly, monthly or seasonally to match operational needs.

HarvestReplay is built on more than a decade of commercial harvest data, which includes 12.3 million recorded farm labor hours and 11.1 million captured GPS events, according to Innov8.ag. The service also integrates proprietary and public data sources, such as university research, labor modeling and aggregated benchmarks from technology, research and industry partners.

HarvestReplay can also connect field data with packinghouse outcomes to create a closed-loop system to better inform how a crop was harvested, how it graded and performed postharvest.

‘Remember When?’ With Context

Innov8.ag founder and CEO Steve Mantle says HarvestReplay takes the historical data of an operation and provides data and context in a more modern “Remember when?” that growers so fondly speak of.

Mantle says this daily audio briefing can provide information such as the forecast ahead so growers can better anticipate potential weather interruptions, trends and context around production. He says this is all with the intention of helping growers better understand current trends and also places to improve.

Instead of relying on spreadsheets and raw data, HarvestReplay helps a grower see things differently, Mantle says.

“Where it’s not just reliant on memory alone,” he says.

The audio briefings, Mantle says, help set a grower’s agenda for the day.

“This is like a game film review for Friday,” he says, adding that most HarvestReplay users listen to the briefing to start the day and then check in and see the HarvestReplay data in real time.

“This audio intelligence briefing shows what happened yesterday and what could have gone differently, then that turns into today’s playbook,” he says. “Then [growers] can also log in and check what’s happening in the moment on that day.”

Mantle says that information gleaned before the day begins can have a big impact on the day’s productivity.

“We see actually trends up hour to hour to hour to hour,” he says. “So, getting it right, right out the door where your people are knocking out of the ballpark, that’s where your bang for the buck is.”

The audio playbook is interactive, he says, where growers can push a button to ask for the top things to know about that day or for more context.

Rollout And Pricing

As of now, HarvestReplay is for current Innov8.ag customers growing blueberries, cherries and apples, Mantle says. He says the company has the most confidence in the data already in its system, but plans a broader rollout in 2027.

Pricing is at scale, he adds.

Return on investment, Mantle says, has a high potential, especially as HarvestReplay informs more efficiencies on the farm.

“When your farmers are running big crews, say 1,000 or more, even a few points of labor productivity has this massive impact straight to their profitability,” he says. “A 7% to 8% improvement in a 1,000-worker operation, doing something like just optimizing harvest station placements so workers spend less time walking, with scale it can actually translate into a seven-figure savings.”

Innov8.ag estimates HarvestReplay can offer an estimated savings of:

$25,000 to $100,000 for small-scale farms (less than 100 workers).
$100,000 to $250,000 for medium-scale operations (100 to 999 workers).
$250,000 to $750,000 and up for large-scale agribusinesses (1,000-plus workers).

AWG Scales SmartMeals AI to Empower Independent Grocers

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 17:55:06 GMT

Associated Wholesale Grocers Inc. says its artificial intelligence-driven meal-planning and shopping tool, SmartMeals, has transitioned from its trial phase to a full-market rollout. Developed in partnership with Breez AI Corp., the technology is now available to AWG’s network of member retailers to enhance the digital shopping experience.

AI-driven shopping assistants, once only the domain of national chains, are now accessible to independent retailers, enabling them to level the playing field and offer a personalized, meal-planning and digital shopping experience that today’s consumers increasingly expect.

“SmartMeals helps shoppers move easily from inspiration to purchase,” says Tal Zlotnitsky, founder and CEO of Breez AI. “If a customer selects a recipe that calls for fresh fruit or vegetables — like a stir-fry or salad — SmartMeals automatically adds those ingredients to the shopping list using items available in that specific store.”

“And because it is connected with that store’s inventory, the shopper never has to worry about their selected produce being out of stock,” Zlotnitsky adds.

AWG says independent grocers are facing an urgent challenge as AI begins transforming consumer habits in the grocery industry; shoppers are adopting AI at an unprecedented rate to inform their purchasing decisions, and independent grocers cannot stay on the sidelines.

“SmartMeals protects retailers’ relationships with their customers in this crucial moment where consumers are learning new habits thanks to AI,” says James Neumann, senior vice president, sales and support for AWG. “We’re already seeing very strong results, including a 22% lift in average basket size and a 72% increase in loyalty sign-ups at participating stores — and we’re only at the beginning.”

“SmartMeals enables our members to compete with national chains and provide consumers a smarter personal shopper assistant that matches or surpasses other AI tools in functionality and user experience,” says Shelly Moore, chief information officer for AWG. “We now have nearly 100 stores onboarded, with a strong pipeline including some of our largest members.”

Its capabilities include:

Personalized meal-planning based on dietary needs, allergies and health considerations while protecting user privacy.
Budget-smart recommendations tailored to household preferences.
Step-by-step recipes with images for easy cooking guidance.
Custom-branded retailer experiences that build differentiation.
Retail media opportunities through personalized product recommendations.

“We are proud to have built SmartMeals in partnership with AWG,” Zlotnitsky says. “SmartMeals is a generative AI shopping companion that transforms how people plan, shop and cook. Built for the modern consumer and integrated directly into grocers’ online platforms, SmartMeals helps shoppers go from ’What’s for dinner?’ to checkout in under two minutes, while protecting customer privacy.”

AWG says the launch underscores its commitment to bringing cutting-edge yet practical technological solutions to its member retailers. SmartMeals empowers independents to offer a modern, intuitive and competitive digital experience without the heavy infrastructure investment typically required to develop in-house AI capabilities, according to the group.

“At AWG, we continue to see SmartMeals gain significant traction with consumers,” says Stacy Bowen, vice president of sales and solutions for AWG. “SmartMeals provides the kind of engagement and ‘stickiness’ that strengthens the bond between consumers and our member store locations.”

SmartMeals is now available to AWG member stores, with onboarding support, marketing materials and training resources available to assist retailers in deployment.

“This is an exciting year for AWG as we celebrate our 100th anniversary,” says Dan Funk, president and CEO of AWG. “We’re proud to offer to our members a solution that addresses one of the biggest opportunities and risks they are facing — the impact of AI on their relationship with their customers. In partnership with the folks at Breez AI, we created SmartMeals to provide independent retailers with a safe, reliable and highly personalized AI experience that customers can trust and grocers can own. In January, 85 AWG member stores deployed SmartMeals, with more rollouts coming.”

Gallant Engineering Brings End-to-End Automation to Fresh Produce Sector

Wed, 18 Mar 2026 16:16:36 GMT

Gallant Engineering USA’s Li-Pack 360D is now available. The automation firm provides integrated packaging and palletizing machinery for the food and consumer goods sectors.

The company says its Li-Pack 360D is a patented linear dual-lane packaging machine that doubles throughput while maintaining competitive pricing. First debuted in 2023 with successful pilot implementations, the system achieves 90 pouches per minute, according to the company.

The patented mirror-image dual-lane design runs two synchronized packaging lines in parallel. Gallant Engineering says its linear architecture delivers a minimal footprint. Other features include single weigher operation; modular station configuration for cold seal, vacuum, and nitrogen flushing; automated HMI changeover; and more.

“The Li-Pack 360D emerged from a simple question: Why should manufacturers pay double for doubled capacity?” says Abhijit Salpe, CEO and founder of Gallant Engineering. “By rethinking the fundamental architecture of pouch packaging lines, we’ve engineered a solution that delivers enterprise-level throughput at an accessible price point for mid-market manufacturers.”

The Li-Pack 360D serves manufacturers across snacks, dried fruits, nuts and more. Gallant Engineering says the system has proven effective in fresh produce packaging, filling pouches for fresh dates faster than competing equipment, with customized solutions under development for grapes and tomatoes.

The company says the system is in full production with delivery and installation within 15 weeks.