In September 2021, Associated Grocers of New England signed with Herlitz Inventory Management to improve upon its existing purchasing system and to further advance its goal of serving the needs of independent retail grocers of every store size and format.
October XX, 2021, Cambridge, MA – Herlitz Inventory Management, leading innovator in scientific demand forecasting, replenishment and optimization, announced that Associated Grocers of New England (AGNE) has selected HIMPACT as its new purchasing system. By rolling out HIMPACT in the coming months, AGNE will be replacing its current legacy purchasing system, E3 Trim.
Carl Herlitz, President and CEO of Herlitz Inventory Management Inc. said, “We are thrilled to welcome Associated Grocers of New England to the HIMPACT family. We very recently completed training with AGNE’s fellow ROFDA member, Associated Grocers, Inc. – Baton Rouge (AGBR). We are confident that AGNE will enjoy major benefits from HIMPACT like AGBR is already beginning to receive.” Herlitz continued, “I am personally very excited to be working with both of these grocery cooperatives and am looking forward to partnering with them for years to come.”
Contrary to common expectations, Associated Grocers of New England services a much greater area than just New England. That’s due to several expansions that are guided by a team of experienced and passionate grocery executives. The AGNE website states that while most of its business is in the six New England States (New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island), it has expanded to upstate New York as well.
“As AGNE has grown over the years, it’s important we upgrade our technology to match the needs we have from our independent retailers,” said Joe Conley, Director of Merchandising and Procurement at Associated Grocers of New England. “We oversee a large distribution center with thousands of SKUs, so it’s critical we have the efficiencies in a buying and inventory management system that can satisfy the dynamic needs of our business. On the tailwinds of COVID-19, we needed additional support to maintain our growing and evolving supply chain. We are confident that HIMPACT will provide the assistance our team needs to perform at the next level.”
As a grocery co-op, AGNE offers a variety of products and retail support services to its members. AGNE member stores rely on these tools to make accurate and informed decisions so they can better serve their customers. Several features of the HIMPACT purchasing system were major selling points for the co-op, including the ability to manage promotions, calculate freight allowance and allocation more easily, and to buy and manage perishable items more accurately. The speed with which HIMPACT can be implemented was also important in AGNE’s decision to switch purchasing systems.
“HIMPACT includes many of the standard functions of our existing purchasing system but also offers a more robust set of features specific to perishable purchasing” explained Ann Visser-Depp, Director of Fresh Merchandising and Procurement at Associated Grocers of New England. “While these features are exciting, it would be a moot point if our current IT infrastructure was not able to support the software. With HIMPACT, we expect integration to be swift and require very little internal IT intervention. We are confident that the features available to our fresh procurement team will be a considerable asset in the areas of inventory and margin management, freeing up time for our procurement team to laser focus on category management.”
Herlitz further noted, “AGNE will be the fourth ROFDA (Retailer Owned Food Distributors and Associates) member to join HIMPACT. With a shared goal of empowering independent retail grocers nationwide, ROFDA and Herlitz are a natural fit. We hope to work with even more ROFDA members in the coming years to help support their cause and further their mission.”
To learn more about Herlitz Inventory Management, visit the Herlitz Inventory Management website or call (617) 871-9001.
About Herlitz Inventory Management
Founded in 2009, Herlitz Inventory Management (Herlitz IM) provides tightly integrated Demand Forecasting, Order Optimization, Promotion and Forward Buying. Herlitz innovative designs are an industry standard; used by thousands of companies to optimize inventory. With end-to-end visibility and new insights, HIMPACT is uniquely suited to today’s marketplace, delivering optimized buying quantities, highly satisfied customers, and tighter inventory management.
