An AI fix for America’s $27 billion grocery waste problem

Afresh just raised $34 million to expand its AI tools that help supermarkets cut food waste.

[Photos: ArieStudio/Adobe Stock]

Grocery stores waste around four million tons of food in the U.S. each year—mostly fresh food, since it’s hard for store managers to know exactly how many cartons of strawberries or pounds of beef to keep in stock to meet demand.

Until fairly recently, most of that planning happened manually. But AI tools from the startup Afresh are helping stores cut waste by as much as 25%. The company announced $34 million in new funding today to expand, co-led by Just Climate and High Sage Ventures.

A decade ago, when Afresh cofounders Matt Schwartz and........

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