In their own words: AFS
You had this idea. You're with Associated Food Stores, you see problem, you see a solution, you start talking about it. Can you walk through that a little bit? But first, what was the problem? Our vendor partners consistently told us that we were difficult to see in the market, which was true. Because we are a wholesaler serving independent retailers, we don't show up well in syndicated data sets. We really are not well represented. They always want to act like independents, which they are. It allows them to act more like the retail chain that they're constantly competing against and want to compete on equal footing, but they're unable to because they always wanna act like independents. How important do you think the analytics advantage is for the independents to compete against a growing cadre of massive competitors out there? It's one hundred percent important. Whenever they're asking for funding to do something, we always counter with, if you can provide us data to show the effectiveness of these programs that you're recommending, then we're on board. But oftentimes, because of the retail community, it's a challenge to get a lot of retailers to agree to hand over their data. COVID really exacerbated that. We we didn't show up well. We couldn't be seen. We couldn't assure that we were being allocated our proper amount of product at the time. We needed a way to, show up. The vision there to help our suppliers get a clear view of what happens when they can see what they ship to our warehouse, what ships from our warehouse to our retailer, and then what sells through each individual store. And then if something happens, such as a product shortage, that we can be more visible, better seen, get our fair share, have the information to stand up and say, hey, manufacturer, please make sure that you ship us the proper allocation or give us the right funding. The better the information we have, definitely the better results. We have accruals that Associated gets based on their sales volume that we then use to apply trade allowances to the retail community to help drive their business. It's just kind of a self fulfilling activity. It allows us to to do even more. That goes back to the competitive advantage that AFS retailers now have, being able to coordinate with the supplier for both promotions, trade spend, and also the counseling that they receive in terms of how to achieve better profitability. Obviously, you're not just working with AFS. You're working across a number of different groups, other retailers. With the Spark application, where does that position AFS and their independent retailers against the other groups that you're working with. It's so much better than any place else. The data that I've been getting even from the base level from Associated is far superior than any other wholesaler out there. That data allows us then show them the benefits of working in a uniform manner to drive results versus a bunch of independents doing their own thing hoping for good results. It turns hope into actual real results.

