Dive Brief:
- Albertsons is now using an AI-powered proprietary inspection tool for fresh produce, the retailer announced Tuesday.
- The Intelligent Quality Control tool, which measures the quality and consistency of strawberries and grapes in select warehouses, uses Google Cloud’s Gemini Enterprise, including Vision AI and Gemini models.
- The proprietary tool underscores Albertsons’ drive to build its own back-end technology and harness AI to boost operations.
Dive Insight:
While Albertsons’ Intelligent Quality Control program is initially being used to inspect strawberries and grapes, the grocer said it plans to expand the solution across the entire berry section, bring the tool nationwide and incorporate more fresh products.
In a video accompanying the announcement, Albertsons showed how its “next-generation inspection tool” gauges the quality of fresh strawberries. Inside a company warehouse, a worker uses a tablet equipped with the Intelligent Quality Control program to photograph plastic containers filled with berries. The tool then grades the produce based on Albertsons’ quality standards, assigning a high grade to deep red strawberries and a lower grade to discolored ones.
The new AI tool helps Albertsons grade produce faster, provides richer data and applies scores with greater consistency in line with the retailer’s standards, according to the announcement.
“We built the AI-powered Intelligent Quality Control tool to support our team of talented quality inspectors in our distribution centers, and early results show it’s been incredibly helpful in increasing the consistency of quality rating which is crucial for highly perishable products such as fruits and vegetables,” Evan Rainwater, Albertsons’ chief supply chain officer, said in a statement.
Other grocers are using AI to improve merchandising and reduce waste across fresh departments. Hy-Vee recently partnered with Relex to improve its forecasting and ordering processes across its fresh assortment. Late last year, Afresh, which counts Albertsons, Meijer and Stater Bros. Markets among its client base, expanded its suite of fresh product management solutions to include inventory management and production planning tools.
Albertsons’ produce inspection tool is the latest development by the grocer in partnership with Google Cloud. Last year, Albertsons became the first retailer to debut Google Cloud’s Conversational Commerce agent.
Albertsons is also focused on integrating AI tools to boost its back-end operations. In a blog post posted earlier this year, Anuj Dhanda, the company’s chief technology and transformation officer, wrote that the grocer is using AI to improve its demand forecasting, optimize promotions, forecast labor needs and improve worker scheduling.
