Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. (AWG), the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to over 1,100 independent companies and over 3,200 supermarket locations in 28 states, and IRI^®, a fast-growing global technology leader in innovative solutions and services for consumer, retail and media companies, today announced a strategic partnership to launch AWG Partner Gateway, a portal to enable integrated and seamless collaboration between AWG members and their vendor partners using IRI Liquid Data^® technology.

“Our members represent more than $23 billion in retail sales, making the collective cooperative the sixth largest supermarket group in the United States,” said David Smith, AWG’s president and CEO. “Our mission is to provide our member-retailers all of the products, tools and services they need to compete favorably in all markets served. With IRI’s expertise, data access and advanced technology, AWG is empowering our members and vendor partners to leverage data and analytics as strategic differentiators for improved growth and profitability and to further achieve our mission.”

By automating and connecting the key forms that vendors use to communicate and sell to AWG, and automating reporting to AWG vendor partners, the AWG Partner Gateway will drive organizational and operational productivity, reduce overall collaborative costs to serve, and provide standardized reports, analytics, forecasts, and automated processes based on AWG’s “one source of truth” database.

“IRI is thrilled to be bringing a highly customized solution – rooted in advanced technology and our unparalleled data access – to the important independent retailer and wholesaler markets in partnership with AWG,” said Wei Lin Wong, president of Global Retail and Strategy, IRI. “The AWG Partner Gateway creates a best-in-class program to help AWG provide their vendor partners and members with accurate, real-time, and actionable insights driven by the most representative wholesale distributor data available.”

The AWG Partner Gateway’s transformational capabilities will include an enterprise-wide view, standardized category management and execution analytics, long-term demand forecasting, and automated vendor partner workflows. This portal is a key element in AWG’s CONVERGENCE journey, designed to deliver incremental and lasting value to its members. CONVERGENCE is AWG’s long-term strategy to operate as a $23 billion cooperative retailing organization, delivering “best-in-class” capabilities to its members and vendor partners.

The AWG Partner Gateway will roll out in multiple phases, beginning in the second quarter of 2022. Phase 1 will leverage AWG’s order and shipment data to provide AWG’s merchants and vendor partners with standardized data, reporting, analytics, and insights and create differentiated capabilities in assortment optimization, planning and forecasting, and workflow automation. Phase 2 and beyond will provide AWG members with visibility into local competitive market insights as well as the ability to integrate point-of-sale data for competitive differentiation and further localization.

About ASSOCIATED WHOLESALE GROCERS, INC.

Associated Wholesale Grocers, Inc. (AWG) is the nation’s largest cooperative food wholesaler to independently owned supermarkets, serving over 1,100 member companies and over 3,200 locations throughout 28 states from 9 wholesale Divisions. The consolidated sales for AWG are $10.6 billion. In addition to its cooperative wholesale operations, the company also operates subsidiary companies that provide specific real estate and supermarket development services, print and digital marketing services, health and beauty care, general merchandise, pharmaceutical products, specialty foods, and natural and organic products. For more information, visit AWGinc.com and follow @AWGCorporate on Twitter.

About IRI

IRI is a fast-growing, leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers, and financial services and media companies grow their businesses. With the largest repository of purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated into an on-demand, cloud-based technology platform, IRI is empowering the personalization revolution, helping to guide its more than 5,000 clients around the world in their quests to remain relentlessly relevant, capture market share, connect with consumers, collaborate with key constituents and deliver market-leading growth. For more information, visit www.iriworldwide.com.

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