Afresh

Congratulations on five years at Afresh, Madison Klinghoffer! 🎉 When Madison first joined, we were a small team with a big belief: that AI could help eliminate food waste and make fresh food accessible to all. She's grown alongside that mission every step of the way. Today she's one of the most trusted voices in our organization and a strategic partner to grocery executives tackling some of the hardest challenges in retail (shrink, perishability, and labor efficiency). Madison brings something rare to her role: deep operational empathy, a genuine curiosity about her customers' goals, and the kind of follow-through that builds relationships for the long haul. She shows up for her customers and for her teammates, every time. We're proud to have her on this team, and grateful for everything she's brought to our customers and to Afresh over the last five years. 

Fresh is the hardest part of the store to get right, and the most important. It gets customers in the door, keeps them coming back, and right now, it's where the real margin battle is playing out. Fresh drives some of the highest margins in the store, and when it's done well (less shrink, fewer stockouts, better turns), it goes straight to the bottom line. The problem is most technology wasn't built for it. The variability, the spoilage, and the unpredictability of fresh don't fit neatly into systems designed for the dry aisles. Afresh was built the other way around. We started with fresh, the hardest part of the store to manage, because if you can build AI that works there, you can build AI that works anywhere. That same foundation now runs across the entire store in one platform: Store Ordering, Production Planning, and Period-Ending Inventory, and upstream to DC Buying. The grocers pulling ahead right now are treating fresh as the edge. And they're building the operations to back it up. https://lnkd.in/ei6GPP_R

Everyone is talking about AI in grocery, but at #WAFC, the focus was on the technology that helps entire organizations work better. A few themes stood out: 🥬 Fresh continues to be the strategic focus of grocers. In a struggling economy, fresh is how grocers win. 🤖 Most grocers are ready for AI. The problem is most AI tools fall apart when the data is messy. 🔗 The data exists. It's just living in silos—and disconnected data means disconnected decisions. Grocers aren't short on ideas, but the ones who make those ideas stick are the ones with the right technology—connecting data and decisions so that on a Tuesday morning when nothing goes as planned, teams can still make the right call. That's what Afresh was built for. WESTERN ASSOCIATION OF FOOD CHAINS INC #GroceryRetail #AIinRetail #GroceryInnovation

We're growing the team at Afresh 💚 Last week we announced $34M in new funding. Now we're focused on who we're building with next. This isn't just another AI company — we're working on one of the most tangible problems in the grocery industry: helping grocers make smarter decisions across the supply chain. The kind of work that shows up on real shelves, in real stores, across 40 states. We're hiring across AI/ML, engineering, data science, and product. The team that got us here is genuinely one of the best parts of working at Afresh — collaborative, mission-driven, and moving fast. We'd love to find people who want to be a part of building something that makes an impact and transforms the way grocery operates. Check out our open roles: https://lnkd.in/etidpMsu

Grocery is one of the hardest AI problems in the world. It’s also one of the most underserved. Today we're announcing $34M to keep changing that, co-led by Just Climate and HighSage Ventures. Grocery is a $10T industry that runs on thousands of daily decisions about what gets stocked, what gets sold, and what gets thrown away. We started with fresh because it's where the margin for error is smallest — if AI works there, it works anywhere in the store. Where we are now: → 200M+ lbs of food waste prevented → 12,500+ departments across 40 states → 70% YoY growth The grocery industry sits at the center of the global food system. Every decision it makes shapes what's grown, what's eaten, and what's wasted. Afresh is the AI making those decisions better at scale. Next chapter: more decisions, more products, more grocers, less waste. Thank you to all of our investors, our grocery partners, and the team building this.

Afresh announced the expansion of its technology platform beyond fresh categories into center store, frozen, general merchandise, and health and beauty. The AI tech company now offers replenishment, demand forecasting, inventory management and distribution center buying for “everything that a grocer sells in their four walls,” CEO and co-founder Matt Schwartz said in an interview. This expansion allows grocers to buy Afresh applications or the company’s algorithm on their own, providing “a lot more optionality for us to play nicely with the grocer’s existing systems and application,” Schwartz said. https://lnkd.in/efg_m8mh

We have some big news - Afresh has officially launched total store coverage. For too long, grocers have been stitching together separate systems for fresh and center store. Today, that changes. Afresh now covers fresh, center store, frozen, and general merchandise — on one AI platform purpose-built for grocery. What makes this different from every other "total store" pitch is where we started: fresh. The hardest environment in the store. The one where shelf life is short, demand is unpredictable, and the margin for error is razor thin. If you can build AI that works there, you can build AI that works anywhere. Now we have — across every department, with Replenishment, Inventory Management, and DC Buying built to help grocers run the whole business more intelligently. With department-specific intelligence built for each category's unique dynamics, a bag of chips isn't managed like a carton of strawberries, because one-size-fits-all AI isn't built for how grocery actually works. Over 320 million CPG and frozen orders have already run through Afresh. Today, that same intelligence is available across your entire store. https://lnkd.in/eZqNFCQ6

Stater Bros. Markets is expanding its partnership with Afresh to unify fresh inventory decisions from stores to distribution centers. Following strong results using Afresh’s AI-powered Fresh Replenishment in produce, Stater Bros. is scaling the platform into additional fresh departments and extending that same intelligence upstream with DC Forecast. Together, this creates a more connected approach to fresh inventory — linking real store demand directly to buying decisions at the distribution center. Fresh categories are complex by nature: perishable items, frequent ordering, promotions, and constant variability. Traditional forecasting tools weren’t built for that reality. Afresh’s AI is purpose-built for fresh, helping retailers adapt in real time, reduce waste, improve availability, and operate with greater confidence across the fresh supply chain. We’re proud to partner with the Stater Bros. team as they continue to modernize fresh operations and deliver fresher food to their communities. https://lnkd.in/dRTfUaxc

We’re honored to be part of the #NRF2026 Innovators Showcase. This year at NRF, Afresh is proud to join some of the most forward-thinking companies shaping the future of retail. Being a part of the Innovators Showcase is a meaningful moment for our team — and a reflection of the momentum behind fresh-first, AI-powered decision-making. Fresh is one of the most complex areas in grocery, and it deserves technology built specifically for it. We’re excited to show how Afresh helps grocers navigate the volatility of fresh with solutions like Fresh Buying, Fresh Replenishment, Production Planning, and Period Ending Inventory. If you’re attending NRF, come meet us in the Innovators Showcase at booth 8145. See you in New York! 👋

Afresh is growing—and so is our leadership team! Following our biggest year yet, with over 70% YoY growth and presence across 12,000 grocery departments, we’re excited to welcome Adam Litle as our Chief Revenue Officer. Adam brings years of experience building and scaling food, agriculture, and retail technology companies. He’ll lead Afresh’s go-to-market strategy as we expand our AI platform across merchandising, operations, and supply chain organizations to help grocery teams plan, buy, and operate fresh categories with greater precision. After launching many new products in 2025 (including Production Planning, Period Ending Inventory, Fresh Buying, and major enhancements to Fresh Replenishment), Afresh is poised to enter its next phase of growth across the U.S. and international markets. Backed by a tenured leadership team and strong momentum, Afresh is building the future of fresh. We’re excited for you to see what’s ahead. https://lnkd.in/eaVN9WJr