SAN FRANCISCO — Heinen’s, the premium Midwest grocer known for its butcher-shop heritage and prepared foods departments, is extending Afresh to Period Ending Inventory (PEI) across its fresh departments — from produce and meat to deli, cheese, and bakery. The move puts Heinen's fresh perimeter on one AI platform for both ordering and inventory management.
Period ending inventory is one of the most time-consuming and error-prone recurring jobs in grocery: a complete, after-hours manual count of every item in the store, often followed by hours of manual data entry. Afresh replaces that process with item-level, AI-powered inventory estimates drawn from daily store ordering, shipment, and sales data.
Instead of counting every item by hand, teams review and confirm Afresh’s Intelligent Inventory, which is 10% to 40% more accurate than perpetual inventory. Using those estimates as the starting point means faster counts, more reliable inventory data, and more accurate financial inputs at period close. “Taking ending inventory has historically been an arduous and error-prone process dreaded by most team members. With Afresh, we have been able to increase the accuracy of our counts, more quickly pinpoint variances, and simplify the process for our associates,” said Kelsey Heinen, Director of Food Service at Heinen’s.
Because Heinen’s was already on an Afresh store ordering system, rolling out PEI was seamless. There were no additional integrations or devices needed. Adoption was easy for store teams because it’s a workflow they’re already used to. “The real opportunity in grocery AI isn’t any one feature. It’s a platform that handles the routine work end to end and leaves people only the decisions they should own. Period ending inventory is one of the clearest examples. With Heinen’s, we’re building toward a different kind of fresh department — one where the routine runs itself, and teams spend their time on delighting customers,” said Adam Litle, Chief Revenue Officer at Afresh.
