Industry · Food & logistics

Fresh goods don't wait. Neither should your processes.

For food wholesale, fresh-food logistics and delivery businesses: from goods receipt through processing, label and route to the invoice, one chain without retyping, with one AI employee per role.

Servers in Germany · AI advises, a human decides · Transparency under the EU AI Act

Goodsreceipt Scaleprotocol Labelbatch ·best-before date Scan Warehouseorder picking Route Deliverydriver Invoicing ✓ Traceability · one click on the route by noon, no retyping between steps Goods receipt Scaleprotocol Labelbatch · best-before Scan Warehouseorder picking Route Delivery Invoicing ✓
Fig. 01: Typical chain in a fresh-food warehouse and delivery business (example scenario)

What shapes daily work in the fresh-food warehouse and on the route

  • Goods arrive in the morning and have to be weighed, processed, labelled and on the route by noon. Every break between systems costs minutes you don't have.
  • Batches must be traceable, including the best-before date (MHD), within hours if in doubt. Today this is on delivery notes in folders.
  • Dispatch knows which customer has to be delivered first. The route planning software doesn't.
  • Margin is made at weighing and processing, and it is lost when yields and prices are not right per line item.
  • Seasonal peaks, staff changes, drivers who are new: the knowledge of how things are done sits in a few heads.

Example scenario

AI in logistics: what we build for this industry

A typical workflow as we set it up in this industry; not a specific customer project, no customer figures.

The chain of scale, label, scan, route.

For us, AI in logistics starts at the scale. The employee puts the goods on it, the system takes the weight and prints the label with batch, best-before date and customer data. The scan posts the line item to the order and the route. No manual step in between.

Scale (protocol)Label printing (ZPL)ScannerInventory management system

→ AI integration & process automation

Inventory management along your process.

Purchasing, production, logistics, sales and finance in one system, with batch and best-before date as required fields.

→ CRM & ERP with AI

One AI employee per role:

purchasing, production, logistics, sales, finance and drivers each get one that knows the tasks of the role and your rules. Management corrects centrally.

→ AI employees

Route planning with your rules.

Capacity per vehicle, customer priority, time windows: stored as logic, not passed on by word of mouth.

Passwords, documents, communication

in one place, with permissions per role: the foundation without which no automation runs securely.

What matters

What matters most in food and logistics

Traceability (Art. 18 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002):
batch and best-before date belong in the system, not in a folder. We build them into the chain so that the information on where a batch came from and where it went is one click away. The same data is available in the system for your HACCP documentation.
Speed before completeness:
a warehouse employee has seconds, not minutes. Every screen we build is tested with a stopwatch.
Keeping the know-how:
new drivers and temporary workers get an AI employee that knows the rules, instead of asking the boss for weeks.

Relevant stages

  1. Stage 0 · Entry

    Connect & automate

    AI integration & process automation →
  2. Stage 1 · Core

    Manage

    CRM & ERP with AI →
  3. Stage 2 · Industry

    Look ahead

    Predictive maintenance & industrial AI →

What already runs in food wholesale, without customer names

  • The chain of scale, label printer, scanner, route and order is closed: industrial scale connected via its protocol, label with batch and customer data from the system, the scan posts the line item.

  • Route planning with vehicle capacity and customer rules as stored logic.

  • One AI employee per role, from driver to management; management sees what the AI employees have learned and corrects it in one place.

Terms

We speak the language of your warehouse

Batch / lot (Charge / Los)
A quantity of goods produced under the same conditions. It carries traceability in both directions.
Best-before date (MHD)
German abbreviation for Mindesthaltbarkeitsdatum. It is on the label and comes from the system, not from a pen.
HACCP
Hazard analysis and critical control points, the own-check system under Art. 5 of Regulation (EC) No 852/2004.
Order picking (Kommissionierung)
Putting an order together from the warehouse. The scan posts, the person picks.
Yield
The ratio of saleable goods to raw goods after processing. It decides the margin per line item.
Break between systems
Every point where a number is typed from one system into the next. Each one costs time and produces errors.
Scale protocol
The interface through which an industrial scale passes its weight to a system, without reading and typing it.
ZPL
Printer language for label printers. The label is generated from the system data, not from a template filled in by hand.

Looking ahead

Looking ahead: cold chain and conveyor systems

Refrigeration units and conveyor belts: if the cooling fails, the goods are lost; if the belt stops, the route stops. The next step for this industry is the signal from the equipment and the maintenance work order in the system before the cooling fails.

Predictive maintenance & industrial AI

Role permissions by task. Operation on servers in Germany or on your infrastructure. Critical data runs offline and locally; we connect external language models only for non-critical data and only as processors under Art. 28 GDPR. AI identifies itself as AI; decisions on prices, approvals and staff are made by your employees. → AI transparency

Frequently asked questions: food trade and logistics

How do we get batch and best-before date (MHD) into the system instead of a folder?

Batch and best-before date enter the system at goods receipt as a required field, go onto the label from the system and are tied to the line item when scanned. The information required under Art. 18 of Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 – where a batch came from and where it went – is then a report at the click of a button, not a search through folders.

Which scales and label printers do you connect?

We connect industrial scales with a network or serial protocol, label printers with a standard printer language and wireless handheld scanners. Whether your device is among them we clarify in the first call, based on its type and interface.

How quickly is a new driver or temporary worker onboarded?

How quickly a new driver is onboarded we can only tell you with a number from your company: we measure the onboarding time before the start and afterwards. What changes: the driver sees their route, their customers and those customers' rules in their AI employee and asks it instead of the boss.

Does this also work for a delivery business with five vehicles?

Yes, a delivery business with five vehicles can also start small: the smallest pilot is one role or one chain, for example scale and label or route and invoicing. We work for companies with 5 to 250 employees.

→ All questions

→ All industries · Or call us directly: +49 3301 8673990

Next step

Show us your goods receipt or your order picking

On site or by video. In the first call we count together the manual steps that don't need to happen.

Reply within one working day.