Cub Deploys Afresh’s AI-Powered Fresh Operating System
Minnesota food retailer Cub has rolled out across its corporate stores the Fresh Operating System from Afresh Technologies, a provider of artificial intelligence-powered technology built specifically for fresh categories within grocery.
After introducing Afresh’s predictive ordering and merchandising solution in select stores, Cub swiftly realized considerable improvements to inventory turns and product freshness for shoppers, material labor efficiencies for store personnel, and a meaningful reduction in food waste across the grocer’s supply chain.
“At Cub, the local community is at the center of everything we do,” said Cub CEO Mike Stigers. “Afresh has helped us keep our community front and center by delivering better, fresher products to our shoppers, while also helping us reduce waste and lessen our environmental footprint.”
Afresh’s solution works across Cub’s existing forecasting, inventory and store operations, providing department managers with a suite of easy-to-use ordering tools powered by real-time insights. As a result, grocers using Afresh typically boost sales by an average of 3% chainwide while lowering food waste by 25% and significantly improving inventory turns.
“Afresh worked to make the implementation of the Fresh Operating System as easy, flexible and lightweight as possible, which significantly reduced the burden on our IT team,” said Cub CIO Luke Anderson. “We’re excited to roll Afresh out to more stores as a part of Cub’s broader strategy to increase efficiencies across our chain.”
“Cub is a beloved cornerstone of their local community in Minnesota, a testament to the great work they do to constantly improve the grocery experience for their shoppers,” said Matt Schwartz, CEO and co-founder of San Francisco-based Afresh, adding that the company “is proud to continue to partner with Cub to help them reduce food waste and make fresh, healthy food accessible to their community.”
Afresh partners with grocers collectively operating more than 3,000 stores in 40 states, including Albertsons, WinCo Foods, Heinen’s, Save Mart and Bashas’.
Owned by United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI), Stillwater, Minn.-based Cub operates 80 grocery stores and pharmacies in Minnesota and Illinois. It also offers a selection of wines, champagne, rosé, craft beer, cider and mixers through its 31 Cub Wine & Spirits and Cub Liquor stores. Providence, R.I.-based UNFI, delivers a wide variety of products to customer locations throughout North America, including natural product superstores, independent retailers, conventional supermarket chains, e-commerce retailers and foodservice customers. The largest publicly traded grocery distributor in America, the company is No. 49 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer's 2022 list of the top food and consumables retailers in North America.
