As a teenager growing up on Long Island in the early 1990s, I got my first job working in wholesale produce. After an adolescence spent playing team sports, I loved the team atmosphere of the warehouse. I continued to work my way up the ladder and eventually formed what is now Krystal Produce.
Even now, nearly 30 years into my career, I still love the team atmosphere of this business. Together, we face all the challenges that come with this business: long days (and nights!), weather, fluctuations in the growing season and inflation.
On top of that, we’ve had to confront the staffing shortages that have plagued so many other industries since the start of the pandemic. For the last few years, I’ve been on the lookout for a way to make our team more efficient and to free them up from the tedium of some of the less-interesting parts of the job, namely, transcribing customer orders and manually logging them into our back-end inventory system.
Not only is this a particularly boring job that none of my employees enjoy, it’s also one of the most error-prone parts of the process and can lead to revenue loss if something is entered incorrectly, and we need to make it right with a customer.
I was working with a company called Choco to digitize our product catalog when they introduced a new artificial intelligence-powered order management system in mid-2023 and asked us if we wanted to be one of their pilot customers.
There is a lot of hype out there as it relates to AI, but this felt like a practical application to a real problem our business was facing, so it was an easy decision to say yes.
AI put our order processing on autopilot, with little human intervention required. When a customer calls or emails in with their order, the technology automatically captures it, inputs it into our back-end inventory system and creates an order.
What I’ve found amazing about AI is how smart it is.
The algorithms have been able to gradually learn different language characteristics, languages and accents across our customers. Because many of the people who work in foodservice aren’t native English speakers, this is huge.
It also uses the customer’s order history, so when a regular calls in and simply says “give me the usual,” AI can look at past orders and know exactly what that means.
Since we’ve implemented AI, our errors have gone down significantly at the same time that the number of orders we’re able to log has gone up. Right now, we are processing about 1,500 orders per month via the app and averaging about 13 seconds per order. And, best of all, it takes just one person to oversee the orders that are done through the app, whereas I previously needed five.
My staff has since been freed up to do more exciting work that helps grow the business, rather than transcribing voicemail orders for hours on end. My sense is that this ability to let people do more interesting work and grow valuable skills will help us retain them as employees for longer.
This experience has also reaffirmed my belief in the power of technology to help grow our business, and I would really encourage other wholesalers who might be considering adopting AI to embrace the future with open arms.
My biggest piece of advice would be to choose your partner wisely, as I think this has really been the key to our success. You want to work with someone who will create a detailed timeline and work-back plan that includes scheduled check-ins. Be sure you understand how much time will be needed prior to onboarding for “pre-training,” in which their model trains on your existing data to ensure that it is accurate once you are up and running.
They should also clearly outline a plan for employee training, including how many sessions will be needed, whether they will be virtual or in-person and who from your organization should attend. A good partner should also help you identify and track progress toward metrics like money saved, time saved per order and the number of error-free orders, so you know how well the technology is working.
The pace of change can feel overwhelming at times, but I truly believe that those of us who take concrete steps today to stay ahead of the curve will set ourselves up for future success and longevity.
Mike Longo is the owner and chief executive of Krystal Produce, a produce wholesaler based in Syosset, New York. Mike started working in the warehouse of Westbury Produce as a teenager in 1993 and became a partner at Westbury in 1999. In 2004, he merged with Arrow Produce & Krystal Fruits & Vegetables, Inc. Today, Krystal is one of the largest produce purveyors servicing the finest food establishments in the New York Metropolitan area.
