Grocers are caught between customer expectations for speed and the reality of thin margins. What innovations are you deploying to resolve this tension sustainably?

How is AI reshaping inventory prediction and last-mile logistics in eGrocery, and what opportunities remain untapped by current solution providers?

To address this growing tension, retailers are turning to AI-powered replenishment tools that reduce waste, improve margins, and support smarter store operations. Dollar General, for example, scaled its fresh produce program to stores nationwide using Shelf Engine by Crisp, which automates ordering based on real-time demand and inventory data – ensuring consistent availability of refrigerated produce while reducing shrink. Across departments, Crisp’s Shelf Engine helps grocers grow category sales by nearly 10% while eliminating hours of manual forecasting labor.

At the distributor level, data-sharing platforms like UNFI Insights powered by Crisp give retailers’ supplier partners real-time sales and inventory visibility, enabling them to optimize production and reduce spoilage. The result is higher supplier fulfillment, fewer out-of-stocks, and stronger category performance, multiplying profitability.

Real-time inventory visibility combined with AI-driven replenishment models helps retailers meet the growing demands of in-store, online, and pickup orders. Accurate forecasting across channels supports optimal fulfillment without overstocking or missed sales. Still, one of the biggest untapped opportunities lies in replacing siloed tools – for demand forecasting, route optimization, inventory management – with a single, unified platform powered by real-time data. When this intelligence can accurately analyze and predict demand and operational needs, it can trigger a domino effect across the entire retail organization: optimizing last-mile delivery routes, automating warehouse stocking levels, and informing procurement orders to suppliers. The result moves beyond individual problem-solving to create a fully connected, predictive, and self-optimizing value chain grounded in clean, structured data.

Columbus Consulting delivers solutions that drive true value and have been transforming the retail, grocery and CPG industries for over two decades. We are a retail consulting company of industry experts. Our approach is simple, if you do it, we do it. We are more than consultants; we are experienced practitioners who actually sat in our clients’ seats. We understand the challenges, know what questions to ask and deliver the right solutions. Columbus offers a unique, consumer-centric approach with an end-to-end perspective that bridges functional & organization silos from strategy to execution. Our specialties include: unified commerce, merchandising & category management, planning & inventory management, sourcing & supply chain, data & analytics, accounting, finance & operations, people & organization and information technology. Let us know how we can help you. To learn more, visit COLUMBUSCONSULTING.COM.