UNFI partners with ECRS to enhance retail automation

Grocery wholesaler United Natural Foods Inc. (UNFI) has forged an arrangement with retail transactions solutions provider ECRS that will enable users of ECRS’ CATAPULT point-of-sale platform to leverage UNFI’s Professional Services suite that includes digital coupons, third-party delivery services and electronic payments.

The agreement provides for a direct and formal working relationship, particularly around electronic data interchange (EDI) capabilities, and empowers UNFI field associates through ECRS retail automation technology training, the companies said. 

UNFI suite of business solutions are intended to help independent grocers increase sales, lower costs, and enhance their customers’ experience.

The CATAPULT platform connects inventory and supply chain, customer loyalty, point-of-sale, self-service, online ordering, and other retail operations technologies in real time. 

“It is imperative in today’s environment that retailers use technology to simplify their business and elevate the shopping experience, giving them more time to focus on their consumers,” Chris Testa, UNFI president, said in a statement.

The parties said that UNFI’s retail customers will be able to easily automate supply chain processes and simplify the ordering process by using ECRS’s subscription-based supply chain software and UNFI’s data exchange program.

CATAPULT users can electronically submit a variety of documents, including purchase orders, and receive invoices, promotional files, and catalog data, the companies said. 

“UNFI provides a great deal of technological services at a scale that can give our mutual retail customers tremendous leverage in the marketplace,” Pete Catoe, ECRS founder and chief executive officer, said in a statement. “This agreement allows ECRS to play an active role in ensuring our UNFI customers can take full advantage of these competitive differentiators.”

ECRS Gateway supply chain software platform, hosts more than 2,000 EDI accounts across UNFI’s retail customer network. The retailer accounts are expected to process more than 500,000 electronic transmissions in 2023 in the form of purchasing and receiving documents to and from UNFI.