A significant food distributor continues to make inroads into digital commerce and transformation. And for US Foods, the payoff is more customers and digital sales tied to MOXē, its mobile app, and in gaining operating efficiencies through deploying more artificial intelligence (AI).
For its fiscal second quarter ended June 30, US Foods reported sales of $9.71 billion. That a rise of about 8% from sales of $9.01 billion within the prior yr. Net income was $198 million. That compares with $182 million in Q2 2023.
In essentially the most recent quarter, US Foods continues to execute on its plan for digital transformation, including AI, CEO Dave Flitman told analysts on a recent earnings call.
“We are going to proceed to bring additional value to our customers through our digital platform,” he said.
How US Foods is using AI to drive digital transformation
One area where US Foods is making inroads digitally is through the use of AI to make driver delivery more efficient.
“(We’re) utilizing artificial intelligence throughout the Where’s My Truck feature for MOXē customers to trace their truck and delivery time. And over the past few months in our pilot markets, we’ve improved our delivery window accuracy by 40%,” Flitman told analysts. “We’ve seen a major reduction in delivery-related customer support calls in those markets due to the higher customer experience. This solution can be implemented in all markets by the tip of the yr.”
US Foods chief financial officer Dirk Locascio said the corporate will gain efficiency through higher route prediction and delivery timing,
“This hasn’t anything to do with the driving force of the shopper — that is our ability to predict when the route will get to the shopper,” Locascio said. “We’ve got applied some significantly enhanced capabilities using AI to give you the chance to predict that. Those increased capabilities are allowing us to be more accurate, telling the shopper when we expect the truck will get to their final stops.”
It’s all about MOXē for US Foods
At the guts of US Foods’ digital strategy is MOXē, the corporate’s ecommerce portal, which launched in late 2022. The corporate says 84% of US Foods’ customers use MOXē to position orders and manage their business.
Business management tools embedded in MOXē include:
- Cost management
- Labor and staff planning
- Retail performance
Within the second quarter, MOXē will proceed to realize more acceptance from customers, the corporate says.
“We’re very enthusiastic about MOXē – As we previously mentioned, we’re 100% rolled out across our independent restaurants and we’ve continued to ramp that up in our chain business. It’s now in 75% of our national chain business,” Flitman told analysts. “We expect to ramp that up between now and the tip of the yr. And to your point, yes, and as we said on investor day, on average, customers are buying 10% more.”
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