SAN FRANCISCO, March 17, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Afresh, a leader in grocery AI technology, has announced a significant expansion of its platform to encompass all departments within grocery enterprises. This move includes not only center store and frozen goods but also general merchandise and health and beauty items, building upon its foundation in the fresh perimeter. The platform currently manages replenishment, inventory, and distribution center buying decisions for over 320 million center store items annually.
“For decades, grocery technology was built for packaged goods and then adapted to fresh,” said Matt Schwartz, co-founder and CEO of Afresh. “We did the opposite. We started with the hardest environment in the store: fresh — bulk produce with no barcodes, random-weight meats, and prepared foods. Once we solved those problems, extending that intelligence across the rest of the store became possible.” This comprehensive approach enables grocers to leverage a single AI platform for inventory management across all departments.
The expanded platform offers capability to manage various items, including bulk produce, subprimal meat, deli counter cuts, and household essentials. This allows retailers to maintain an effective inventory and ordering system across diverse product categories. Over the past year, Afresh has placed more than 320 million orders for shelf-stable items, which now account for 33% of total order volume and reach as high as 44% in bakery departments.
Grocery departments exhibit distinct operational constraints. For example, cereal aisles operate with stable UPCs and predictable promotional schedules, while meat counters must manage random-weight items with shorter shelf lives. Afresh’s platform is uniquely designed to cater to these differing requirements. By utilizing department-specific data models, it automates inventory and buying decisions, enhancing efficiency and accuracy across both center store and fresh departments.
The platform’s adaptability results in a remarkable adherence rate to its recommendations, surpassing 95% across all item types. This streamlined approach provides grocery teams with a unified view of inventory, demand, and buying decisions, thereby enhancing overall operational efficacy.
Historically, grocery retailers have struggled with system fragmentation, managing fresh and center store operations across a disparate range of systems. This disconnection often leads to inefficiencies such as overstock and out-of-stocks. Bruce Burrows, former CIO of Loblaw Companies Limited and Sobeys, emphasized the challenges posed by this fragmentation, stating, “Grocers have spent decades wrestling with system and data sprawl, trying to force fragmented data to talk across platforms that were never designed to connect.” Afresh aims to rectify this by offering a single, AI-native system that unifies supply chain visibility.
With the Afresh platform, decisions regarding buying, replenishment, and inventory are now streamlined and coordinated. For instance, a corporate-level steak promotion automatically adjusts store replenishment quantities and production planning schedules, minimizing the need for manual intervention.
Retailers can integrate the full Afresh platform via mobile and web applications or adopt its AI as a backend engine within existing systems, offering greater flexibility without requiring a complete technology overhaul. Unlike many enterprise grocery platforms, which often require extensive implementation timelines, Afresh’s deployments typically conclude in under four months.
Since its inception, Afresh has been committed to reducing food waste, successfully preventing over 200 million pounds since its founding. The current expansion allows grocery retailers to manage all items—from fresh produce to packaged goods—with enhanced precision, ultimately contributing to reduced waste throughout the food supply chain. As grocery technology continues to evolve, Afresh’s platform signifies a pivotal shift toward integrated, efficient management of diverse product categories, heralding a new era in grocery operations.
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