Afresh Expands AI Platform to Cover Every Item in the Store

The grocery AI company now manages replenishment, inventory, and buying decisions across all departments, from fresh to center store.

Mar. 17, 2026 at 3:21pm by Ben Kaplan

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Afresh, the leading grocery AI company, has announced the expansion of its platform to manage replenishment, demand forecasting, inventory, and distribution center buying decisions across every department in the grocery store, including center store, frozen, general merchandise, and health and beauty, in addition to the fresh perimeter where Afresh built its foundation. This makes Afresh the only grocery AI platform capable of handling every item across all departments.

Why it matters

Historically, grocery retailers have managed fresh departments, center store, and supply chain operations across disconnected systems, making it difficult to coordinate decisions across merchandising, distribution, and store operations. This fragmentation often results in overstock, out-of-stocks, and food waste that compounds across the supply chain. Afresh's unified AI platform aims to provide grocers with a complete view of their business and streamline decision-making across all departments.

The details

Afresh's expansion builds on its existing experience managing packaged goods within fresh departments. Over the past year, the platform placed more than 320 million orders for shelf-stable items, which now represent 33% of total order volume and as much as 44% in bakery departments. The platform runs a single AI engine but adapts to the different workflows and constraints of each department, providing department-specific intelligence on a single system with a shared view of inventory, demand, and buying decisions from the distribution center to the shelf.

  • Afresh announced the expansion of its AI platform on March 17, 2026.

The players

Afresh

The leading grocery AI company that has expanded its platform to manage replenishment, inventory, and buying decisions across every department in the grocery store.

Matt Schwartz

The co-founder and CEO of Afresh.

Bruce Burrows

The former CIO of Loblaw Companies Limited and Sobeys, who commented on the challenges of system and data sprawl in the grocery industry.

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What they’re saying

“For decades, grocery technology was built for packaged goods and then adapted to fresh. 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.”

— Matt Schwartz, Co-founder and CEO of Afresh (valleyjournals.com)

“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. It's made getting a complete picture of the business nearly impossible. Afresh took a different approach. Instead of just patching gaps, they've built a single AI-native system that provides a unified view across the entire supply chain.”

— Bruce Burrows, Former CIO of Loblaw Companies Limited and Sobeys (valleyjournals.com)

What’s next

Retailers can deploy the full Afresh platform with mobile and web applications, or integrate the platform's AI as a back-end engine within existing systems. Most enterprise grocery platforms require 12 to 18 months to implement, but Afresh deployments are typically completed in under four months, without external system integrators.

The takeaway

Afresh's expansion of its AI platform to cover every item across all grocery departments aims to provide retailers with a unified view of their business and streamline decision-making, helping to reduce waste, improve profitability, and ensure fresher products on the shelves.