Freshub is one of the companies looking to own point-of-sale solutions for the kitchen. Home replenishment services and in-home grocery shopping have been buoyed by connected appliances like Samsung’s FamilyHub fridge and voice assistant devices like Amazon Echo.
Just a few months ago, the company launched the second generation of its software platform, enabling grocery ordering using natural language interfaces such as voice and gesture recognition on appliances and devices. Now Freshub is partnering with IRI, a big data and predictive analytics company that works with large retail companies to deliver relevant consumer data and analytics solutions.
The partnership will allow Freshub to have access to enormous amounts of data about what consumers like to buy, preferences based on the types of things they already buy and predictions about what they’ll want or need next. This is similar to Amazon’s suggestion engine, with recommendations for similar things that a shopper might want after they establish a buying history. The joint press release from IRI and Freshub also indicates “the relationship also will spur development of a range of additional innovative features, such as product-level health indicators.”
IRI Retail President David Hoodis commented,
“Retail and CPG companies can more rapidly adapt to the demands of today’s connected consumers by offering effortless and efficient shopping experiences.”
Having a platform that can offer this type of “if you buy this, then you’ll like that” platform for appliance and device makers to add to their connected kitchen offerings is appealing. The real story behind connected devices in the home is what will happen to all that data and how marketers can use it to make personal recommendations for each consumer in their home, and Freshub’s partnership with IRI could give them the data chops necessary to compete with the likes of Amazon and Google.