North West Co. Extends Relationship With Invafresh
The North West Co. Inc., which is currently using Invafresh’s Scale Management solution, will expand its use of the vendor’s fresh retail platform by deploying Recipe Management to ensure regulatory compliance, improve operating margins and reduce shrink across their operations. North West sought a solution that would include allergen and nutritional information on food labels so it could maintain compliance and also provide appropriate guidance to customers when it comes to healthier eating options.
“We have been using Invafresh’s Scale Management solution with very positive results due to the ease of use for our in-store employees and flexibility of the platform,” noted Vineet Gupta, CIO at Winnipeg, Manitoba-based North West. “Extending our relationship with Invafresh to include Recipe Management will help take our operations to the next level in the use of analytics to deliver an improved customer experience. Having Invafresh as the foundational technology for our perimeter store operations, including deli, meat, bakery and produce, will allow us to scale efficiently as the business grows.”
[Read more: "Tales From the AI/ML Grocery Front Coming to GroceryTech Event"]
Using the artificial intelligence and machine learning capabilities native to the Invafresh Fresh Retail Platform, North West will be able to measure the performance of each store, providing it with information on the efficiencies that it’s realizing by projecting ingredient demand for each recipe, among other food production operations. With Recipe Management, North West will have a centralized source of recipe truth and be able to accurately forecast the cost of recipes against actual costs, allowing it to improve operating margins by accounting for production based on food, labor, packaging cost and recipe yield.
As another of North West’s key priorities was to ensure compliance with food safety regulations in both the United States and Canada, integrating Recipe Management with the existing Invafresh Scale Management solution means that the retailer will be able to produce regulatory-compliant nutrition labels with 100% accurate ingredients and allergen statements across the enterprise.
“With our fresh retail platform, The North West Co. will be able to unlock critical data that will allow them to better allocate labor resources, reduce shrink and drive increased efficiencies,” said Tim Spencer, CEO of Toronto-based Invafresh. “We are excited to strengthen our partnership with The North West Co. as they seek to further automate their in-store processes to deliver an exceptional customer experience.”
North West, through its subsidiaries, is a retailer of food and everyday products and services to rural communities and urban neighborhoods in Canada, Alaska, the South Pacific and the Caribbean. The company operates 221 stores under the Northern, NorthMart, Giant Tiger, Alaska Commercial Co., Cost-U-Less and RiteWay Food Markets banners.
