SAN FRANCISCO — Afresh, the first artificial intelligence-powered fresh food optimization platform for grocers, and Heinen’s, the preeminent neighborhood grocery store for the Cleveland and Northern Chicago areas, today announced a new partnership in which Heinen’s will deploy the Afresh solution suite in fresh departments across the chain. Heinen’s will use Afresh across its 23 stores to reduce food waste, improve store profitability, and make fresher, healthier food more accessible to its communities.
“Our customers know that they can always find the freshest, highest quality foods and the greatest assortment at Heinen’s,” said Jeff Heinen, Co-CEO of Heinen’s. “The partnership with Afresh enables us to continue to deliver on that promise of the freshest food and the best in-stock rate. We have always embraced innovation and are excited to partner with Afresh.”
Founded in 1929 as a neighborhood butcher shop, Heinen’s Fine Foods, with four generations of family ownership, has a leading reputation for high quality products across fresh departments. By partnering with Afresh, Heinen’s will continue to offer the freshest foods to their communities. Heinen’s has already seen a substantial reduction in product loss and increase in sales, boosting profitability.
Afresh’s A.I.-powered optimization platform is purpose-built for fresh departments and efficiently supports merchandising, ordering, and store operations solutions. Afresh helps grocers significantly reduce food waste, increase freshness, and accelerate stock turns, resulting in increased sales and profitability.
“Afresh enables us to profitably run the fresh department just as we envision it,” said Greg Sotka, Director of Category Management and Merchandising for Heinen’s. “Ever since we started working with Afresh, our teams have loved the experience, from the ease of use of the app to the accuracy of recommendations. Our product is fresher and more in-stock and we’ve significantly reduced shrink. All in all, Afresh has been an incredible partner to Heinen’s.”
“Grocers like Heinen’s have an important, but wildly tough job: feed millions of mouths with slim operating budgets inside a brutally competitive industry. We started Afresh to help them succeed,” said Matt Schwartz, CEO of Afresh. “Heinen’s is known for delighting its loyal customers and we are deeply honored to partner with them to help them be the best in fresh.”
About Afresh® Technologies
Afresh Technologies develops A.I.-powered solutions that optimize merchandising, ordering, and operations for all fresh departments. Afresh significantly reduces food waste, improves its partners’ profitability, and makes fresher, healthier food more accessible to all. One third of all food is thrown away each year—Afresh is addressing this enormous problem which leads to expensive losses for grocers and significant impact to the environment. Its groundbreaking technology has resulted in up to a 50% reduction of in-store food waste and 3% incremental growth in sales. Afresh is a Series A startup based in San Francisco that was founded by Matt Schwartz, Nathan Fenner, and Volodymyr Kuleshov. They started the company when they were graduate students at Stanford in early 2017. Learn more at www.afreshtechnologies.com.
About Heinen’s
Founded in 1929 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, by a local butcher named Joe Heinen, Heinen’s has grown to 23 total store locations with 19 stores in Cleveland and four stores in the suburbs of Chicago. Heinen’s employs more than 3,500 associates. Today, Joe Heinen’s twin grandsons, Jeff and Tom Heinen, carry on the family legacy of unrivalled quality food and world-class customer service. To learn more, connect with Heinen’s on Facebook, Twitter or Heinens.com.
