RELEX Solutions has announced a transformative acquisition that will revolutionize how grocery retailers manage their most challenging product categories through cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology. The Finnish supply chain optimization leader has acquired Ida, a Paris-based SaaS specialist in AI-native fresh replenishment and store ordering optimization solutions. This strategic move significantly expands RELEX’s capabilities in the complex fresh food retail sector.
Finnish technology leader buys Parisian AI expert
The RELEX Solutions Company has fully acquired another company called Ida, which brings a new skill set in the categories of fresh and ultra-fresh products to its comprehensive AI-based planning platform. The skill set offered by Ida covers a wide scope in the domain of loose assortment management, such as fruits, vegetables, bakery, meat, seafood, and prepared foods.
Its customers include large European grocery chains like Auchan, Coopérative U, Naturalia, and Biocoop, which reflects the company’s quick market acceptance by large grocery chains searching for innovative technologies to solve their inventory challenges. Fresh food categories pose the greatest operational challenges for the grocery industry due to their short shelf lives, great volatility, as well as the disconnected data flow arising from products of varying weights coming from large global supply chains.
Advanced algorithms revolutionize perishable inventory management systems
The category-specific capabilities of Ida will also perfectly integrate with the unified platform of RELEX, thereby offering grocery retailers an integrated environment for planning, including linking store execution as well as supply chain execution from supplier to shelf for every category of merchandise. Such an environment leverages the complexities associated with refrigerated inventory through advanced algorithm capabilities driven by seasonality, weather, consumer behaviors, and supply chains.
Strategic integration creates a unified retail optimization platform
This move further improves the services provided by RELEX with enhanced AI functionality, specifically for fresh and ultra-fresh categories, involving automated recommendations for store-level associates and managers for diversified operational tasks. An AI-improvised solution for forecasting and ordering perishables and loose items improves the current services provided by RELEX, and AI-assisted production planning modules support meat, seafood, bakery, deli, and prepared foods combined.
The integration will provide better forecasting on distribution centers and suppliers, which will be facilitated by central dashboards that will allow headquarters employees to monitor everything related to retail points. These will be referred to as “RELEX Fresh Store Ordering”. They will enhance “RELEX In-Store Production Planning”, which will offer a complete solution that fills the gap that exists between store execution and retail planning strategies.
Enhanced platform delivers measurable operational improvements
The acquisition positions RELEX to address critical challenges in fresh food management while reducing waste, maintaining availability, and improving labor efficiency at the store level through intelligent automation and predictive analytics. Ida CEO and Co-Founder Mateo Beacco emphasized that joining RELEX represents a transformative opportunity to redefine global fresh food management standards through scalable technology solutions that deliver immediate impact.
This collaboration brings together the seeds for developing global standards for fresh optimization, reducing waste at a large scale through global availability, and leveraging AI intelligence to benefit store associates through the implementation of day-one results. The integration here enables the retailer to move quickly and smarter for all types of commodity products while also optimizing their supply chain through store performance.
“In terms of freshness, it has always been the hardest thing to get right,” said Mikko Kärkkäinen, Group CEO & Co-Founder at RELEX Solutions. “With the addition of Ida’s world-class fresh replenishment capabilities, what this enables the grocery industry to do is move both faster and smarter, regardless of category.”
This revolutionary acquisition unambiguously places RELEX as an undisputed leader in the space of retail optimization, with unmatched supply chain knowledge and expertise in the fresh food category. The upgraded offering will allow international grocery retailers to provide unmatched levels of operational efficiency and customer experiences with optimal product availability and minimized waste.
