Ida, a newly established French startup, aims to collaborate with supermarkets and grocery stores to enhance the efficiency of ordering fresh produce like fruits, vegetables, meat, poultry, and fish. Recently securing a $2.9 million (€2.7 million) seed funding round from investors including Frst, Daphni, Motier Ventures, and Kima Ventures, Ida seeks to address the challenges posed by traditional order sheets used by grocery stores, which often result in both food waste and shortages, leading to financial losses or missed revenue opportunities.
Currently, the conventional approach involves personnel manually navigating extensive order sheets, making subjective decisions based on intuition and historical data. Ida’s co-founder and CEO, Mateo Beacco, explained that even experienced individuals may struggle to be consistently accurate due to high turnover and changing circumstances.
To revolutionize this process, Ida introduces a tablet app integrated with a sales forecasting algorithm. Initially focusing on vegetables and fruits, the app has the potential to expand its scope to include other perishable items like meat and fish. Ida aims to fill a gap in the supermarket inventory management system, particularly for items without bar codes, by employing a probabilistic inventory that considers real-world scenarios.
Unlike traditional methods that rely on point-of-sale data, Ida factors in over a hundred parameters and at least three years of sales data, incorporating elements like weather conditions, seasonality, prices, local competitors, and special offers. The app uses this comprehensive forecasting data to generate optimized orders, allowing stores to configure a safety stock to prevent stockouts without over-ordering.
Although Ida’s algorithm generates orders, the system involves human oversight, enabling staff members to manually review and adjust suggestions. Currently, the startup estimates that 70 to 75% of Ida’s recommendations are accurate and do not require manual intervention. Following this, Ida generates order forms for central purchasing offices and potentially for local producers, providing flexibility in supplier selection.
As a relatively nascent player in the field, Ida represents a step towards addressing challenges in fresh produce management. Other startups, such as Guac in the U.S., are exploring similar solutions. The adoption of these software-based approaches by grocery stores could prove crucial in improving financial performance and minimizing environmental impact.
