Afresh has launched Fresh Buying, the San Francisco-based tech company's latest platform that CEO Matt Schwartz says will allow produce and other buyers of fresh food to focus on the most important and revenue-generating aspects of their roles by bringing the power of modern artificial intelligence to digitize and optimize one of the most challenging jobs in grocery: fresh distribution center buying.
Fresh Buying represents a new model for meat, deli, bakery and produce buyers. Afresh says it delivers the agility and AI needed to manage perishables at scale, far beyond what conventional supply chain tools were built to support. The Afresh Platform brings AI-powered precision to the center of the fresh supply chain, enabling buyers to react quickly and ensuring that they ship the freshest products to stores, the company says.
Keasbey, N.J.-based Wakefern Food Corp., a retailer-owned cooperative with supermarket banners including ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Morton Williams, Fairway Market and more, will be among the first to implement the Fresh Buying solution across its produce, meat, seafood, deli and bakery DCs.
“Together with Wakefern, we're modernizing how fresh moves through the supply chain — making it easier to get the right products to the right stores, at the right time, with less waste,” says Schwartz.
Wakefern says it sees Fresh Buying as both innovative and transformative.
“Wakefern has a proud legacy of investing in fresh — from partnering with local farmers to embracing best-in-class technology,” says Darren Caudill, chief sales officer at Wakefern. “From the moment we saw Afresh's Fresh Buying solution, we recognized its potential. This kind of innovation is poised to transform the industry — and Wakefern is committed to leading that transformation.”
Fresh Solutions
“Grocers want more technology that's purpose-built for fresh, but the problem has been they want an end-to-end solution across the produce supply chain,” Schwartz told The Packer. “Fresh supply chains are truly interconnected … and the way that you order and merchandise fresh in stores should be connected to the way you buy from growers and distributors, and that should be tied to the seasonality and what's available from a supply perspective.
“What's so exciting about Fresh Buying is that we're doing it — we're now providing end-to-end supply chain connectivity for fresh,” he adds.
Schwartz says, historically, tech tools were built for center store buyers of Cheerios and Coke, whose buying needs are vastly different from those of produce buyers.
“There's no seasonality to the syrup that's going into Coke; it's just going to always be there,” he says. “But when it's cherry season, there might be a bumper crop of the sweetest cherries you've ever tasted, or the cherries could be rejected for quality.”
Meanwhile, highly perishable fresh produce buying and forecasting is a high-stakes game happening in real time.
“Produce is a really complicated space, but we have leveraged the cutting edge of technology to build tools that are purpose built for fresh buyers to help them do their jobs really well; to automate a lot of the rote tasks; and help them focus more on that human connection and the interactions with the growers and making sure that they have the time to navigate that landscape effectively,” he says.
Time-Saving Tech
Afresh says its Fresh Buying is designed to give buyers clear prioritization of daily tasks in DC-level operations by automating routine decisions and intelligently resolving many everyday challenges to maximize service levels, freshness and margin while freeing up teams to work on strategic and creative initiatives.
“We believe that one of the hardest decisions that buyers make is how to allocate their time across their many responsibilities,” says Schwartz. “If I'm the VP of produce, I don't want my buyers wasting time writing purchase orders for apples that I know I'm going to sell day in and day out.”
Schwartz says where produce executives do want their buyers spending time is on discovering the latest and greatest, cultivating relationships with growers and making the most lucrative decisions that move the profit needle.
“We heard from one of our DC customers that some of their best buyers were able to identify a small grower that had a new varietal of blueberry, get contract exclusivity on it and bring the blueberry into their stores,” says Schwartz. “The blueberry is selling like crazy. But it was because with Fresh Buying, the buyers had the time to identify a grower, identify a commodity that was going to be a popular one, lock it down in contract and navigate with their retail counterparts to make it happen.”
Every decision a DC buyer makes — which vendor to source from, how much to order, when to ship — can swing margins and freshness across hundreds of stores, says Schwartz. Buyers navigate a cascade of fast-moving variables each day, including shifting weather, crop delays, vendor availability and variable lead times.
Afresh says its Fresh Buying cuts through that complexity, surfacing what matters most to ensure the best service and product quality for customers in stores. AI agents orchestrate forecasting, vendor selection, truck building and issue resolution into one seamless, intelligent workflow — transforming how buyers plan, purchase and respond in the fast-moving world of fresh.
Efficiency at a Glance
Fresh Buying aims to give buyers one connected workspace where every moving piece of the fresh supply chain — from vendor performance to truck timing to product quality — comes into focus. It centralizes and cleans data, automates routine actions and highlights what needs attention most with AI-powered recommendations that weigh perishability, lead times, vendor reliability and service levels to simplify decision-making and keep distribution centers running smoothly.
Key Capabilities:
- AI-powered replenishment — Translates complex demand patterns and inventory uncertainty into optimized orders that balance cost, waste and availability.
- Real-time issue resolution — Flags disruptions as they happen and directs teams to the fastest, least wasteful fix — maintaining service levels to keep stores in stock.
- Scenario intelligence — Models alternative decisions in real time, showing how each option affects key business metrics so buyers can make informed choices.
- Daily priorities — Surfaces the most important actions for each day, so teams stay focused on what drives results.
- Additional capabilities — Streamlines how buyers manage inventory and suppliers, helping maintain freshness, reduce waste and protect margin as conditions shift.
End-to-End Supply Chain Solution
Wakefern's rollout of the Afresh Fresh Buying solution sets a new standard for fresh supply chain innovation — with cutting-edge tools to see, plan and act in real time for an even fresher, more efficient grocery network, says Schwartz.
“Fresh Buying drives fresher food, higher service levels, lower shrink and enables buyers to spend their time doing the value-added tasks of talking to growers, dealing with special situations, thinking proactively about how they want to merchandise and running their chains, as opposed to reactively, spending a lot of time putting out fires and other nitty-gritty tasks that aren't the most valuable,” Schwartz says.
The platform's streamlining, automating and centralizing of intel across the fresh supply chain is also key.
“We think we are the world's only dedicated fresh AI company and we are putting together a suite of solutions that — for the first time ever — enables a grocer to have end-to-end coverage of the major decisions they need to make in fresh,” he says.
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