Choco launches AI technology for wholesalers

November 21st, LONDON: The food tech company Choco, which digitises the supply chain between catering and retail, is releasing the long-awaited Choco AI after many rumours.

Choco AI digitises all orders from a supplier within 2 weeks. Incoming answering machine and email orders are converted into digital orders using AI and fed into the supplier's existing merchandise management system in real-time. This means that 100 times more orders can be processed per hour - without the need for additional staff. Choco AI solves a central problem in the retail industry.

“The introduction of retailers’ own “webshops” cost our industry years of effort and money and was very slow in digitising order receipts. Choco has already massively increased the pace of digitalization and has now ignited the turbo with Choco AI.

With Choco AI, suppliers can switch to a completely digital and affordable setup in just two weeks. This has taken years so far.

Choco AI is a real game-changer not only for individual suppliers but for the entire industry, opening a new chapter for optimised processes and higher revenues.

For the first time, suppliers can centralise all their orders to address staffing shortages and significantly reduce food waste. We've made sure our AI technology is easy to implement. Our service team supports our suppliers every step of the way. This is just the beginning of a series of AI innovations that we are actively developing to further improve the workflows of both suppliers and restaurants,” says Daniel Khachab, CEO and founder of Choco

The labour shortage and a challenging order situation have characterised the food and retail industry in recent years. And the outlook isn't exactly rosy: 1.95 million retail jobs could remain unfilled by 2035. Reason enough to make the retail industry fit for the future with intelligent technologies. With Choco AI, Choco is now taking the decisive step and making order management in the food industry and wholesalers future-proof and efficient.

Many retailers currently rely on manual order entry but are often unable to process orders outside of their regular business hours, for example, or they rely on employees to record orders and enter them into the system. Orders via email, answering machine, or voice message are now automatically integrated into the retailer's existing ERP system with Choco AI. Both the restaurateur/orderer and the retailer/supplier then receive a confirmation of the order in real-time.

This automation of the ordering process allows 100 times more orders to be processed per hour - while maintaining the same staff capacity.

“It's a game-changer for handling large orders, especially from our biggest accounts. Now, processing is quicker and easier, saving us labour. Unlike other tech, Choco AI lets us grow without needing a bigger team - one person can now handle what would have taken five.” Joseph Longo, Head of Sales at Krystal Produce.

And Choco AI solves another challenge facing the food industry: manual order processing far too often leads to incorrect orders or deliveries that go unprocessed and are thrown away. Choco AI minimises human errors through automated order processing. The system can also gradually learn different language characteristics, languages, and accents of the customers. The Choco AI can already understand these better than a human. Depending on the order history, the mumbled “mate” is recognized as a tomato after just a few processes and not as “mate tea”.

Choco currently processes over 500,000 orders per month. The integration of Choco AI will make a big contribution to automating and increasing efficiency in order management and minimising food waste in the industry.