Case Study
Summary
Fresh Thyme knows being the best in fresh is absolutely vital. Creating a world-class fresh experience drives loyal, high-value customers and grows sales. Better still, operational excellence in fresh creates a virtuous cycle of shrink reduction, inventory turnover, and labor efficiencies. Unfortunately, achieving and maintaining operational excellence in produce remains incredibly challenging due to its inherent complexity. While retailers in other industries have found success by adopting technologies, grocers have not: systems built first for the dry-side of the business consistently fail to deliver in fresh.
The power and challenges of fresh
Produce carries a tremendous upside opportunity. Shoppers who buy produce spend 54% more per basket, and getting fresh right can double a retailer’s potential impact on EBITDA margin.
That upside only shows up for retailers willing to treat produce as fundamentally different from the rest of the store, not as an afterthought bolted onto a dry grocery system.
“Excelling in fresh food is critical to win the modern-day customer. Real healthy fresh food at real affordable prices is the very heart of our business.”
— Tod Pepin, Chief Merchandising Officer
“For decades, I’ve found technology systems were always built around the needs of dry grocery, not those of Produce. Unlike other companies fitting square pegs into round holes, Afresh addresses the idiosyncrasies of my department with a seamless, end-to-end experience.”
— Scott Schuette, VP of Produce
Fresh-first store-level ordering and inventory
To thrive in fresh, Fresh Thyme needed a new approach. Legacy systems designed for dry simply couldn’t handle the many differences of fresh departments: perishability, variability, inventory uncertainty, dynamic merchandising, and other traits that make departments like Produce unique.
Fresh Thyme understood a purpose-built solution was necessary. Afresh was that solution, tailor-made to handle all the complexities and challenges of fresh.
“These are consistently the best conditions and strongest performance I’ve seen in Produce.”
— Jesse Himango, Assistant Director of Produce
“Afresh has been a game changer. Our customers now enjoy the freshest produce, better in-stock conditions, and can trust our top quality every day.”
— Tod Pepin, Chief Merchandising Officer
Chainwide in 2 months
The typical construction of inventory systems means that everything has to be perfect: the data, the items, the scan outs, the receiving, the checkouts. This need for perfection drives integration intensity, deep change management, and labor complexity.
Not so with Afresh: built specifically for the uncertainty of fresh food, Afresh is up and running in no time.
“Typically, I’ve seen inventory and ordering systems take a year or longer to get off the ground. We were impressed when we saw Afresh rollout chainwide in 2 months with minimal training.”
— Ramesh Reddy, Chief Digital and Information Officer
“Because the tool was so simple, we trained our store teammates in way less time than we expected. We can now spend more of our time where it matters, with our customers.”
— Brett Farmer, Produce Manager