Flashfood Teams With Independent Grocers Alliance
The Independent Grocers Alliance (IGA), the world’s largest voluntary supermarket network, has joined forces with Flashfood, a digitally driven solution enabling retailers to reduce shrink by connecting customers with discounted food closing in on its best-by date. The collaboration marks a major milestone for the food waste-fighting app as it seeks to expand nationally in the United States.
IGA’s 1,100 independent local grocery stores in the United States will be able to integrate the Flashfood solution into their operations, offering surplus food items, which would otherwise go to waste, to customers for purchase at up to a 50% discount. Members of IGA will work with the alliance on sourcing equipment and in-store marketing, and will receive support from Flashfood to roll out the program in their stores.
“We’re thrilled to work with the Independent Grocers Alliance to offer local, independent grocers the ability to easily reduce shrink — without any costly integrations or time investment,” said Josh Domingues, founder and CEO of Toronto-based Flashfood. “Food waste at the store level is an important industry issue, and working with IGA’s network will have a positive impact in tackling it while making sure that their communities have more access to affordable, fresh and healthy food.”
Operating in 45 states, IGA grocers are hometown store owners, many of them family-owned for generations, who are integral parts of their local communities.
“As the grocery business changes and evolves, the IGA’s goal is to ensure that we’re equipping members with innovative solutions that help them sell more and reach more of the communities they serve, regardless of their size,” said John Ross, CEO of Chicago-based IGA, which encompasses more than 6,000 Hometown Proud Supermarkets worldwide. “Partnering with Flashfood is one of the ways we are helping hometown grocers compete with large retailers in areas like e-commerce and improving sustainability.”
According to Flashfood, its partners can reduce shrink, boost EBIT by 3% to 5%, make a positive impact on their carbon footprints, and ultimately maintain competitiveness among other retailers in their regions. To date, Flashfood has teamed with several grocery chains across North America, including Loblaw Cos., Ahold Delhaize USA banners The Giant Co. and Stop & Shop, Meijer, Tops Markets LLC, SpartanNash, Giant Eagle, and, most recently, Price Rite Marketplace, to divert more than 25 million pounds of food.
Price Rite Marketplace, a registered trademark of Wakefern Food Corp., a Keasbey, N.J.-based retailer-owned cooperative that’s No. 23 on The PG 100, Progressive Grocer’s 2021 listing of North America’s top retailers of food and consumables, operates more than 60 grocery stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Maryland. Ahold Delhaize USA, Meijer, Giant Eagle, SpartanNash and Tops are Nos. 10, 18, 37, 39 and 66, respectively, on the list.
