Dive Brief:

• Ahold USA will be working with RangeMe to streamline and scale its product discovery efforts in its stores, according to a Project Nosh article.

• “Our goal is to develop more mutually beneficial and successful partnerships with small and diverse suppliers,” Nick Bertram, Ahold USA senior vice president of merchandising strategy and support, said in a press release. “This partnership with RangeMe reinforces our commitment to accomplish this at scale while providing our division customers with amazing products at competitive costs.”

• Ahold USA is the parent of Stop & Shop New England, Stop & Shop New York Metro, Giant Landover, Giant Carlisle and Peapod, and joins several other chains in using RangeMe's technology.

Dive Insight:

One of the toughest steps in getting a new product to market is the space between developers and retail buyers. Since the digital revolution, the amount of products introduced to the market have skyrocketed, making the partnership process between buyer and seller more complicated on both sides of the aisle. 

RangeMe's technology may not be perfect, but it's used by a growing number of grocery retailers, including Southeastern Grocers, owner of Winn-Dixie, Harvey's and Bi-Lo. 

As the grocery industry continues to trend toward digital innovation, its likely that this interface model will remain the go-to means of matching CPG food products with the right retail buyers. This type of platform opens manufacturers to a wide-range of possible buyers and makes the search for innovative products less of a headache for retailers — making it likely that more chains will use the platform in the future.