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Case Study

Associated Wholesale Grocers

Associated Wholesale Grocers and iTradeFresh

“Our members now see the difference in the quality they receive on a day-in and day-out basis.”
– Reade Sievert, VP of Corporate Produce, AWG

Associated Wholesale Grocers (AWG), the US’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently-owned supermarkets, sought to establish a perishables inspection program that was thorough, scalable, and captured product quality analytics that could help drive their purchasing and vendor relationships. With iTradeFresh as a critical core element of their inspection program, not only has AWG streamlined its inspection operations across all of its divisions, AWG’s customers are loving the quality of their produce.

The Challenge

In designing its enhanced quality program, AWG knew it needed to overhaul how perishables inspections were being conducted. Existing manual processes were not providing the consistency or the visibility into vendor performance that AWG needed. AWG needed a tool that was flexible enough to work within its ideal inspection program: one with the right mix of flexibility and configurability to seamlessly fit into its operations, while also significantly enhancing visibility into operations.

The Solution

AWG chose iTradeFresh, iTradeNetwork’s quality inspection solution that’s built for perishables. AWG now leverages iTradeFresh inspection data to gain greater insights and visibility into their supply chain operations. Not only has iTradeFresh ensured consistent quality  by standardizing and guiding inspection processes, but it has also given AWG the rich analytics it needs to source and procure the highest quality  produce available on the market. 

The Value of Fresh:

Improve the the overall quality of your produce

Identify the weakest links in your supply chain with vendor scorecarding

Streamline inspections and improve consistency across distribution centers and organizations

Significantly reduce time spent on rejections

Identify trends for rejected product coming into your facilities

Leverage the iTradeNetwork Platform – Get even more out of your data

Guaranteed Fresh with iTradeFresh

Predictable, reliable food quality is of paramount importance. To that end, Associated Wholesaler Grocers’ quality inspections, like those of many wholesalers, retailers, and distributors today, were not standardized or consistent across their inspection sites. Their inspections were largely pen-and-paper, ‘smart’ Excel forms, and countless email threads.

With manual, inconsistent inspections and no systematic way to capture its results, AWG had an opaque view of its overall produce quality, slow rejection processes that amplified receiving issues, and no way to objectively justify sourcing decisions. AWG was looking for a solution that ensured inspection consistency across divisions and real-time visibility into the inspection process.

Already a customer of iTrade’s OMS trading platform, with which iTradeFresh seamlessly integrates, iTradeFresh was a natural fit. iTradeFresh is the first comprehensive quality inspection SaaS solution for perishables. Moving AWG from pen-and-paper to iPads and iPhones, iTradeFresh now automates, standardizes, and guides AWG’s inspection processes, saving them time in rejections and ensuring consistent produce quality across their 8 full-line distribution centers. With unparalleled flexibility in how inspections can be configured and how results can be communicated to relevant stakeholders, iTradeFresh is more than a helpful tool, it is an active advisor that ensures AWG maintains its high produce standards as well as the high standards of its quality intiatives.

With powerful dashboarding, automated notifications, reports, and clear exception and vendor insights, iTradeFresh gives AWG newfound visibility into its operations, enabling it to quickly pinpoint its best vendors and drive more business their way, spot trends among rejected products, address issues quickly and efficiently, and ensure that their customers never have an empty shelf. iTradeFresh has allowed AWG to streamline its inspections, gain valuable clarity into its operations, and improve its product quality to keep its customers coming back for more.

 

ABOUT AWG

Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. is the United States’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned supermarkets, grocery serving more than 3,800 locations in 36 states and from 8 full-line wholesale divisions.