Associated Food Stores to Deploy Ingredient Management Software

Associated Food Stores, a wholesaler based out of Salt Lake City, Utah, plans to install a suite of scales management, recipe management, and shrink management software for use in its corporately owned and independent retail stores.

AFS supplies groceries to more than 500 banner stores, including over 50 corporately owned stores. In its continuous efforts to better serve its retailer-customers, the wholesaler sought software that could offer recipe management at a central location, help with shrink reduction and offer stores the ability to meet government regulations for labeling. It selected Tampa, Fla.-based ADC’s InterStore.NET solution for the task.

“Independent stores do not always have the resources for solutions to reduce shrink or to assist with recipe management,” said Josh Smith, retail pricing specialist at AFS. “We are working to help our stores increase profitability. ADC’s NutriGen recipe management software allows us to look at the true cost of items, which has been an eye-opener, especially in fresh made sales and scratch bakeries. e are able to synchronize the prices of all items in our warehouse and alert our stores electronically of price changes so that in-store prices can be adjusted accordingly.”

Identifying the true costs of items is just one way AFS said it’s looking to increase profitability, the second way is by helping its stores to reduce shrink.

“Associated Food Stores wants to offer services to its banner stores to help them manage recipes and understand how they could improve sales and reduce shrink,” said Mark Molter, director of channel development at ADC. “InterStore.NET’s shrink reporting shows what and how much the stores are producing and selling and outlines their shrink types and amounts. By implementing InterStore.NET, Associated Food Stores is helping its retailers optimize pricing and improve overall sales performance.”

And since the system is compatible with a variety of scale types, it’s easier to integrate with the range of equipment used by the variety of stores AFS serves. InterScale helps AFS manage scale item pricing on a daily basis, and allows the scales in newly acquired stores to be quickly brought on-line.

“Last November, we purchased 34 stores and transformed them to Associated Food Stores essentially overnight,” said Smith. “ADC’s InterScale gave us compatibility with a variety of scales we had not previously worked with in our other stores. This helped us to transform these stores in a short period of time and to better serve our customers.”

AFS serves more than 600 grocers throughout the Intermountain West.