IR Secures On-Trade ROI

September 26, 2022

Up to 60% of beer in European markets is sold through the on-trade, and brewers invest millions in this channel to provide on-bar brand presence and product availability. However, producers are being challenged to ensure these investments provide a consistent ROI and that contract terms in thousands of pubs, bars and restaurants are adhered to. Historically, manual audits have been used to tackle this issue, but they remain time-consuming and difficult to complete accurately.

Thanks to AI and modern neural networks today’s versions of image recognition can not only improve retail execution but also help to solve non-standard tasks and even has a role to play in the on-trade channel.

Challenge

A world leading brewery was looking for a way to digitize data collection and processing for their on-trade channel in the following areas:

• Contract terms compliance audit
• Equipment inventory audit
• Own and competitor product visibility and share of space taps, spirit shelf and fridges
• Monitoring of brand activity

Solution

SoftServe Business Systems adapted AI Shelf Recognition tool so that it could do the following:

• Bar top share of taps by producer, included ‘T’ bars and different tap designs
• Fridge content review, including brand share
• Recognize 1000+ of SKUs
• AI driven communication of compliance to improve retail execution
• Integration with E2E ecosystem and Data Platform

Results

The use of AI Shelf Recognition in the on-trade channels showed an exceptional impact on how fast and accurate audit can be done even in the non-typical trade environment:

• 98% accuracy level (target 90%)
• 6 minutes for audit (target 5 min)
• 5 seconds from picture to report (target 20 sec)
• NPS of 50 (target 40)

AI Shelf Recognition can cover the whole scope of work in the on-trade outlets, including SKU, price tags, taps, fridge content recognition and brand share calculation for you to set new standards of how on-trade execution must be perfectly done.