Associated Wholesale Grocers‘ (AWG) SmartMeals, its AI-powered meal planning and shopping assistant built in partnership with Breez AI Corporation, has moved from pilot to wide-scale deployment across its member network. Nearly 100 AWG member stores are now onboarded, with 85 stores going live in January and additional rollouts underway.
The announcement comes as AWG marks its 100th anniversary and frames the launch as a direct response to the accelerating adoption of AI tools by grocery shoppers – a trend the cooperative says independent grocers can no longer afford to ignore.
What SmartMeals does
SmartMeals is a white-label, branded AI assistant that integrates into member retailers’ current online platforms. It handles personalized meal planning based on dietary needs, allergies and household preferences; generates step-by-step recipes with images; recommends budget-appropriate products; and creates grocery lists – guiding shoppers from meal idea to checkout in under two minutes, according to Breez AI.
The platform also opens retail media opportunities through personalized product recommendations and is designed to protect customer privacy rather than harvesting data for third-party use.
Early results
James Neumann, AWG’s SVP of sales and support, said initial performance data from participating stores is tracking well above expectations.
“SmartMeals protects retailers’ relationships with their customers in this crucial moment where consumers are learning new habits thanks to AI. We’re already seeing very strong results, including a 22 percent lift in average basket size and a 72 percent increase in loyalty signups at participating stores — and we’re only at the beginning,” Neumann said.
AWG Chief Information Officer Shelly Moore said the platform gives independent grocers competitive footing against national chains without requiring significant internal development resources.
“SmartMeals enables our members to compete with national chains and provide consumers a smarter personal shopper assistant that matches or surpasses other AI tools in functionality and user experience. We now have nearly 100 stores onboarded, with a strong pipeline including some of our largest members,” Moore said.
Why AWG Built It
AWG CEO Dan Funk framed SmartMeals as both an offensive and defensive tool for members navigating an AI-disrupted consumer environment. “We’re proud to offer to our members a solution that addresses one of the biggest opportunities and risks they are facing — the impact of AI on their relationship with their customers. In partnership with the folks at Breez AI, we created SmartMeals to provide independent retailers with a safe, reliable, and highly personalized AI experience that customers can trust and grocers can own,” Funk said.
AWG began developing the solution with Breez AI in 2024. The partnership produced a turnkey deployment model that gives member stores branded AI capability without requiring them to build or manage the underlying infrastructure.
Tal Zlotnitsky, founder and CEO of Breez AI, said the grocery context demanded a purpose-built tool rather than an adapted general-purpose AI. “SmartMeals is a generative AI shopping companion that transforms how people plan, shop, and cook. Built for the modern consumer and integrated directly into grocers’ online platforms, SmartMeals helps shoppers go from ‘What’s for dinner?’ to checkout in under two minutes, while protecting customer privacy,” Zlotnitsky said.
SmartMeals is available now to all AWG member stores, with onboarding support, marketing materials and training resources included.
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