Fresh Perspectives
The Afresh Company Blog

Food waste is a solvable problem, but it will take a village to get there. To shine a light on the important solutions already at work to eliminate food waste, Afresh hosted a webinar with Imperfect Foods, Apeel, and Too Good to Go that explored the intersections of our work so far while identifying our hopes for a fresh future.

With a Ph.D. in Space Science and a career that has spanned startups to tech giants, Director of Machine Learning Lois K. Smith is no stranger to exciting challenges. Still, it wasn’t until she interviewed with Afresh that she learned how she could apply her gift of a love for research to help eliminate food waste.

Across the grocery store, fresh teams struggle to prevent food from ending up in the landfill. The challenge is pretty clear: perishable foods are, well, perishable. We’ve gathered store-level strategies any store team can implement in their day-to-day work.

Afresh was founded in 2017 with the mission of eliminating food waste and making fresh food accessible to all. Since then, we’ve learned so much! Here’s a taste of what we’ve uncovered after five years focused on fresh.

Scan outs and weigh outs are a huge hassle for everyone in fresh, but they wouldn’t be so prevalent if the perpetual inventory systems teams used weren’t perpetually wrong. Rather than relying on a rigid PI calculation that’s tedious to maintain and everyone knows will be wrong, the Fresh Operating System provides an entirely new (and much more effective) solution.

Customer Success Lead Julia knew she wanted to find value alignment between her work and her personal desire to contribute to climate solutions. Her search led her to find a like-minded community at Afresh, similarly motivated to leverage their skillsets towards making real change.

For decades, fresh department employees have dreaded the time-consuming task of placing an order. Although the process has evolved some, store teams want tools that empower their decision-making instead of leaving them behind in the digital dust.

With everything they’ve had on their plates the last few years, it’s amazing what grocery store employees bring to the table! Don’t miss the opportunity to celebrate Supermarket Employee Day on February 22.

Our commitment to our communities extends beyond our products and technologies. We’re creating a workplace that embraces diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB), and where everyone can make an impact while being celebrated for their fully authentic selves.

Most tech-enabled grocery retailers rely on ordering solutions that aren’t optimized for perishability, variety, and variability. In order to truly win at fresh, grocers need fresh-first solutions.

This Valentine's Day, make sure you keep things in stock so customers don't lose that loving feeling with your fresh departments!

Fresh departments are highly affected by labor challenges like retirements, shortages, and callouts. Long-time industry expert Scott Schuette shares conventional and unconventional ways to address these difficulties.

Grocers will face lots of hurdles in 2022, including labor and retention problems, supply and demand imbalances, sustainability adaptations, and accelerated consumer trends. Here’s how to handle it.

We are thrilled to announce we’re partnering with Albertsons—a leading retailer in the United States. Every store across the US will leverage our Fresh Operating System to reduce waste, increase sales, and provide the freshest product for customers.

As COVID-19 has changed how and where we work, Afresh has worked intentionally to cultivate community across remote teams. That includes crazy hat days!

Wondering what it would look like to align your interests and skillset to make a difference with your career? Learn about Beth’s passion for volunteering and her journey to match her personal values with a role at Afresh.

Get a taste of what it’s like to run a fresh department with the Fresh Files! Find out what happens when Produce Manager Beth discovers she’s completely out of mangos…and tropical fruit enthusiast Marsha is on her way to the store!

Millions of recipes and health tips center avocados, so it’s no wonder grocery store sales of them have more than doubled since 2010! For the produce teams that run fresh departments, keeping this crucial fruit in stock is no easy task.

Strawberries are the most popular fruit in the U.S., with blueberries coming in second. By now, consumers expect fresh berries to be in stock all year long. And for fresh department teams, that can be a challenge. We pulled in industry expert Scott Schuette to share his best practices for dealing with the winter berry blues!

We’ve grown by leaps and bounds in 2021, so it's time to celebrate some massive milestones. There's much more to come in 2022!

What’s it like to work with us? Get Tyler’s take on collaborating with coworkers who are passionate about our mission to eliminate food waste and make fresh food accessible to all.

Here at Afresh, our mission to eliminate food waste and make fresh food accessible to all underlies every part of our work. By empowering produce managers to place perfect orders with our AI-powered recommendations, Afresh reduces shrink (the industry term for food waste) by an average of 25% and adds 2 days to post-sale shelf life.

During key events like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s, fresh department inventory and product movement can easily double or triple. Use these best practices to plan ahead and make life in retail fresh departments easier for you and your customers.

Our mission is the foundation of everything we do and, as we continue to eliminate waste and increase fresh food access, we’ll complement that work by serving the communities we live and work in every day.

As we approach Turkey Day, pick up our four tips on how to reduce Thanksgiving food waste.‍

What does it mean to be part of a social impact company built for scale? Read on for Marketing Coordinator Katherine’s take on the journey that led her to Afresh and the road ahead.

Apples are a staple on the table for many families, so we asked Afreshies how they reduce their food waste footprint when it comes to America’s core fruit.

Keeping fresh blueberries in stock isn’t as simple as it sounds. But when grocery stores are low, customers have no choice but to pick the freshest-looking container and hope for the best. This often leads to berries going bad before they can be eaten. There is a solution, and it’s better tech for fresh departments.

Avocados are a big deal—and they’re delicious! We pulled together a few facts about the famed “alligator pear” to celebrate National Guacamole Day!

2020 was a year of highs and lows and fresh sales were no exception. Our 2021 Fresh Survey explains the impacts of COVID-19 on fresh departments in supermarkets and offers a few predictions for the future.

We surveyed grocery shoppers to find out what matters when they’re buying fresh produce. The bottom line: Quality and sustainability are key.

The path that leads folks to Afresh is different for everyone. For Luke, a small moment in his everyday life took him on a journey of self-discovery and, eventually, to Afresh.

Since first launching our Fresh Operating System in stores, we’ve helped grocery stores reduce food waste, avoid greenhouse gas emissions, and save water. See the numbers!

Grocers struggle to reduce shrink and stockouts simultaneously. Afresh’s Fresh Operating Solution makes it happen, increasing perimeter sales in the process.

Fresh Operating Systems help grocery store fresh departments reduce shrink, minimize stockouts and eliminate food waste. Afresh is the first AI-driven, fresh-focused solution in grocery retail tech.

Until now, grocery retailers haven't had the tech they need to truly win at fresh. With a Fresh Operating System, store teams can order better, reduce shrink, and improve sales.

“Finish your plate!” From the time we’re kids learning to use a fork, to when we’re young adults learning to make our own meals, we’re taught not to waste food. And why would we want to? Every black banana or bunch of greens that have wilted to mush is a visual representation wasted hard-earned time and money.

We’re featuring our freshest Afreshies and asking them why they joined! Jack is a Solutions Architect at Afresh who ensures our partners’ integrations go smoothly and sets them up for success. A big fan of both grocery stores and deep discussions about guacamole, Jack found Afresh a pear-fect place to make a big impact and an occasional bun...er...pun.

Every day, people grow more conscious of the effects their consumer choices have on their personal and environmental health. We want to eat better and waste less; we want healthier, more affordable fresh food that nourishes our bodies and lasts long enough in our refrigerators to enjoy. We want the valuable time and money we spend in our grocery stores to yield the tastiest, most nutritious produce possible.