Dive Brief:
- Flashfood, a food waste technology company, announced Tuesday the launch of a platform designed specifically for independent grocers.
- The platform, called Flashfood for Independents, allows local grocers to quickly and easily tap into the company’s platform while having the flexibility to customize the network to fit their small-format needs.
- Flashfood for Independents is already live in around a dozen independent stores across North America with plans to add more than 100 local grocers by the end of the year.
Dive Insight:
This new feature builds on Flashfood’s existing platform and meets independent grocers’ individual needs with customizable features.
The specially tailored platform looks to simplify the installation of Flashfood into stores as well as keep things running smoothly with minimal lift from independent grocers, the technology company said.
The platform does not require inventory data ingestion and includes features that enable manual posting to the Flashfood Partner app on grocers’ devices, according to the announcement. The shopper pick-up model is also curated to each grocer’s store layout and footprint, with “one-size-fits-all signage kits delivered in-store.”
Flashfood for Independents also has an automated reporting suite that provides actionable insights and a support hub to offer help specifically to Flashfood for Independents grocery partners.
“[Independent grocers] may have limited resources, but they’re also extremely nimble, and we wanted to build a product that could match that speed and deliver an impact quickly,” Flashfood CEO Nicolas Bertram said in a LinkedIn post announcing the new B2B platform.
Stores using Flashfood for Independents include Country Squire Foods in Chicago Heights, Illinois; Supermercado Mexico in Wyoming, Michigan; and Petique Boutique in Scarborough, Ontario, according to the press release. Later this summer, select Earth Fare stores plan to launch the platform.
The launch of Flashfood for Independents marks the company’s first new product since the launch of Flashfood in 2016, Bertram said in the LinkedIn post. Bertram took over as the food waste technology company’s CEO in January, noting at the time that Flashfood would see significant changes and growth company-wide, including a new internal infrastructure and a new company logo.
