Weis Markets ensures product freshness with AI
A mid-Atlantic grocer is streamlining fresh food operations with an artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) platform.
Weis Markets Inc. is implementing the Invafresh fresh grocery platform to assist the development of automated demand forecasting, in-store production planning, food traceability, recipe management, and cut test management across all fresh departments.
By leveraging Invafresh capabilities, Weis Markets intends to upgrade its entire fresh food operations lifecycle, from purchase to prepared food production planning. As a result, the retailer seeks to obtain visibility and quality control over stores to maximize freshness and deliver a consistent consumer experience.
The Invafresh platform uses AI and ML functionality to streamline fresh food operations and reduce waste, with the goal of making in-store operations more efficient and enhancing the customer experience.
“Our Invafresh collaboration will help us automate processes, such as ordering, production and inventory management, so that we are meeting customers’ expectations with the freshest foods while also more accurately predicting demand,” said Bob Gleeson, senior VP merchandising and marketing at Weis Markets. “We expect this platform to reduce food waste and improve efficiencies.”
“We are pleased to be extending our relationship with Weis Markets, a customer who has used our scale management solution for many years. We are now focused on helping Weis to optimize its fresh store operations, from deli to bakery, produce to meat, and everything in between, to ensure the freshest and highest quality products are available at the right levels when the consumer wants it,” said Tim Spencer, president CEO at Invafresh. “Our fresh-native platform helps grocery retailers deliver on their customer promise of quality and consistency while keeping margins in check and achieving their food sustainability goals in fresh.”
Weis Markets applies AI to pricing
Weis Markets is expanding its usage of AI in its enterprise. The grocer has also been supporting strategic pricing and promotional decisions with Nielsen Retail Pricing Analytics, an end-to-end pricing and promotion application. The application integrates Nielsen’s price intelligence data, built on the company’s POS data, with machine learning algorithms designed to help retailers create, manage and improve pricing and promotion strategies.
Gaining access to the solution through an interactive cloud-based interface, Weis Markets obtains detailed, intuitive summaries of the impact of implemented pricing changes by overall category, as well as item performance detail, to better understand margin impact. Using embedded AI dashboards, the retailer mines billions of data points to identify logical price changes for ongoing execution.
From a single portal, Weis Markets can also track and segment competitive price tracking by market, define key value items (KVIs) for price adjustment opportunities, implement and manage in-market execution, and quantify ROI from everyday price changes and promotions.
Founded in 1912 and based in Sunbury, Penn., Weis Markets Inc. currently employs approximately 23,000 associates across 198 stores in Pennsylvania, Maryland, New York, New Jersey, West Virginia, Virginia, and Delaware., they have a long-standing history of supporting their communities and local growers.