How Price Chopper/Market 32 Leverages AI to Combat Food Waste
Regional grocer Price Chopper/Market 32 is making moves to stave off food waste by strengthening its partnership with fresh grocery platform Invafresh. The Fresh Retail Platform from Invafresh will integrate in-store production data from the grocer to help its stores more intelligently forecast their needs and manage their inventory.
According to Invafresh, its artificial intelligence (AI)-based solution will help increase sales, reduce food waste and deliver an improved experience to both associates and shoppers in Price Chopper/Market 32’s produce, bakery, deli, meat and seafood departments.
[Read more: Winning the Food Waste Battle"]
“With Invafresh we have increased sales by improving on-shelf availability and have reduced food waste by having fresher products,” said Jody Plonski, SVP of operations at Price Chopper/Market 32. “Because of Invafresh's reliable and easy-to-use application, our in-store teammates can redeploy their time to customer-facing activities, which has led to an overall better shopping experience for our customers.”
Continued Plonski: “Our partnership with Invafresh has helped to prevent 20 tons of fresh food from being wasted each week across our store operations. Invafresh is a key contributor to helping us achieve our sustainability goals, so strengthening our partnership was the right decision for Price Chopper/Market 32 and the communities we serve.”
Patrick Iannotti, director of retail operations at Price Chopper/Market 32, explained that moving to the cloud with Invafresh will provide the grocer with real-time analytics and compliance reporting, in addition to enhanced forecasting capabilities.
“Price Chopper/Market 32 has been at the forefront of the food waste reduction movement, and we are proud that our technology has played a role in that,” said Tim Spencer, CEO at Invafresh. “We know that most problems in fresh are related to forecasting the constant shifts in demand and the need to optimize and match supply and availability. With the intelligent forecasting and real-time analytics capabilities of our Fresh Retail Platform, Price Chopper/Market 32 has been able to address those problems and make a measurable impact on the food waste front.”
Schenectady, N.Y.-based Price Chopper/Market 32 operates 130 Price Chopper and Market 32 grocery stores and one Market Bistro, employing 18,000 associates in New York, Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire. Parent company Northeast Grocery Inc. is No. 45 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2023 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.
