ADC's 12th annual ReFresh Conference was held from October 7th-October 10th, 2013 at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater Beach, Florida.  ReFresh attendees represented eighteen retailers from across the United States.
 

 

The ReFresh agenda included FIM software presentations, retailer chaired roundtable sessions, a retailer presentation and industry update presentations.
 
ReFresh kicked off on Monday, October 7th with a Welcome Reception where attendees had the opportunity to meet and network prior to conference sessions starting.
 
Sessions started Tuesday, October 8th with a Welcome and Introduction by Steve Loveridge, ADC’s CEO.  Steve highlighted the conference agenda, introduced the members of ADC’s Retail Advisory Board (RAB) in attendance and concluded with retailer introductions.
 
“It’s my great pleasure to welcome you to the 12th annual ReFresh Fresh Item Management Conference,” said Steve Loveridge.  “We appreciate everyone being here and look forward to an exciting conference full of great discussions.  Throughout the conference please ask questions, as we want this to be as interactive as possible.”
 
Other highlights of Day One included an overview of InterStore 6.4.3, the latest version of ADC’s FIM software, presented by Robert Appell, Chief Operating Officer, and Mark Molter, Director of Sales Support.  This session included a sneak peek at the latest NutriGen Recipe Manager software in .Net, which is scheduled to be released in Q1 2014.
 
In addition to FIM software updates, the ReFresh agenda also included:

• “Regulatory Update: Key Issues in Food Safety and Labeling” by Erik Lieberman, Regulatory Counsel at the Food Marketing Institute.  Erik shared upcoming food safety legislation that will affect retailers, including the changes to Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) and the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA).
• “Consumer Drivers of Fresh Food Growth” by Sarah Schmansky, Director of Account Services at Nielsen Perishables Group.  Sarah discussed current trends in the fresh food departments, including consumer trends and behavior.
• “Electronic Grind Log” by Larry Kohl, Director of Food Safety at Delhaize America.  Larry discussed how Delhaize America is implementing and using ADC’s Meat Grind Traceability software, including how the software is better preparing stores for transparent record retention and retrieval.

Retailer Feedback:

• “Very informative and one of the best conferences I’ve attended!”
• “Excellent opportunity to understand how other retailers are using ADC’s software.  The insight on how other retailers are doing things is crucial!  Thank you for the opportunity!”
• “Topics were relevant and timely and presenters were very informative.  Seminars were very motivating and on target.”  

Sponsor Interaction – This year’s ReFresh had 8 industry sponsors, including Mettler Toledo, Rice Lake Retail Solutions, Specialty Printing, Zebra Technologies, Bizerba, BRdata, Hobart and NBI Digi.  Each sponsor showcased the latest hardware and technology solutions available for fresh food retailers.

 

Information on ReFresh 2014 will be announced soon. For additional information, please contact:

Jamie Simon

ADC

+1.813.849.1818 Ext. 2238

 

"Guide to Fresh Item Management"

If you're interested in learning more about Fresh Item Management, please click here to download a copy of our "Guide to Fresh Item Management."
 

Trade Show News

We're at the Mettler Toledo Customer Council this week in St. Louis, so stop and say hi if you're there too!

Webinar: Understanding the New Country of Origin Labeling Law and In-Store Traceability

Join us August 15 at 2:00pm EST for the next webinar in our monthly webinar series. 

With the recent changes to the Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) legislation, traceability has once again become a much talked about food safety topic. Your stores are now expected to provide even more information regarding origin of meats in their meat cases.

ADC works regularly with retailers to help meet the latest traceability legislations, including COOL. This thirty minute webinar will highlight the recent changes to COOL, the items that should be considered when looking at a COOL solution and a discussion on solutions available from ADC.

Click here to register.

NACS Article: Fresh Solutions by Fiona Briggs

A UK Journalist, Fiona Briggs, wrote an article for the July issue of the NACS Magazine discussing technology solutions for fresh food departments.

Read the article here to find out how our InterStore software is helping our customer's increase the profitability of their fresh food departments.

Interested in learning more? Be sure to sign up for the ReFresh Fresh Item Management (FIM) conference, October 7-10, 2013 at the Sheraton Sand Key Resort in Clearwater Beach, Florida.   Learn more here.

A Food Marketing Institute Study Recognizes ADC’s P-Cubed Production Manager System as an Effective Shrink Control Tool

The Food Marketing Institute (FMI) recently released the “Food Retailing Financial and Business Review 2012-2013,” which includes a detailed overview and analysis of shrink in food retailing.
 
The study found that the average total store shrink (as a percentage of sales, excluding gasoline and pharmacy sales) was 2.9% among all respondents and 3.4 percent among companies operating 51 or more stores. The highest levels of shrink were measured in the fresh food departments — deli/prepared foods (9.7%), bakery (6.9%), meat (5.5%) and produce (4.4%).*

Study respondents provided a list of tools and processes they have found to be most effective in managing shrink. Improved tracking, analysis and reporting was the first and foremost way, with several retailers calling out improved perishable management in particular.

Responses included, “Fresh-item management systems that produce accurate costs for prepared items,” “data analysis down to the item level” and direct mentioning of our P-Cubed Production Manager Software System.

Specifically, our P-Cubed Shrink Manager module identifies shrink factors, assisting management with reducing perishable food wastage and helping to reduce shrink in fresh food categories. The P-Cubed Shrink Manager also reduces the amount of labor required to capture and report shrink by using hand-held wireless barcode scanners.

“Many of our clients are reporting significant reductions in shrink, without negatively impacting sales, by using our P-Cubed Shrink Manager,” said Steve Loveridge, CEO at ADC. “By tracking and understanding where perishable shrink is occurring, grocery chains have a great opportunity to improve the bottom line in their fresh food departments.”

The P-Cubed Shrink Manager is a module within P-Cubed, a system within ADC's InterStore Fresh Item Management (FIM) software suite. The other two systems within InterStore are the InterScale Scales Manager and the NutriGen Recipe Manager. InterStore provides grocers with an integrated software solution to help increase efficiencies in fresh food departments.

*“Food Retailing Financial and Business Review 2012-2013” published by the Food Marketing Institute - http://fmi.org/forms/store/ProductFormPublic/search?action=1&Product_productNumber=3113
 

Happy 4th of July!