US retail chain Food City has selected California-based SymphonyAI’s Cinde connected retail platform for deep-AI customer analytics.

The chain’s parent company K-VA-T Food Stores is extending the use of AI for supply chain, merchandising, shelf planning, assortment and promotion optimisation across its Food City locations.

With Cinde, K-VA-T can closely track its most loyal shoppers to increase satisfaction and engagement. As the chain expands with new store openings, Cinde provides AI-driven shelf planning that helps attract and retain shoppers in the new locations. Across south-eastern USA, the marketing team relies extensively on SymphonyAI software to create marketing campaigns that engage shoppers.

For category managers, K-VA-T uses Cinde’s shopper insights dashboards across categories in weekly business review meetings. In vendor meetings and category planning, K-VA-T and its suppliers collaborate using Cinde to identify key business drivers within each category and create optimal promotions designed to deepen shopper engagement and achieve category goals.

K-VA-T is also integrating the software into category reviews to make data-driven decisions on assortment strategies. In collaborating with CPGs (consumer packaged goods), K-VA-T and suppliers can use Cinde as a single source of truth, speaking the language of the customer and using the same metrics to assess business performance and define goals and measures of success.

“We are pleased to continually deepen our strong, strategic partnership with SymphonyAI as we progress in our data-driven AI journey,” said Dan Glei, executive vice president at K-VA-T. “SymphonyAI focuses explicitly on aligning with us across all our business processes to achieve our strategic performance goals and be a strong business ally. Cinde Connected Retail provides our category management, marketing and vendor teams the shopper data-driven insights they need to meet business goals and give shoppers the selection and offers they value most.”

Manish Choudhary, president of the SymphonyAI retail-CPG division, added: “At SymphonyAI, we are proud to lead the market with AI-driven retail insights. K-VA-T’s embrace of the Cinde Connected Retail platform shows how innovative retailers can use sophisticated capabilities for speed to insights that meet shopper and business priorities. We continue to invest aggressively in predictive, generative and agentic AI to revolutionise retail for innovators like K-VA-T.”

The Cinde platform and AI SaaS products give retailers a seamless flow of data and insights to strengthen retail operations from the supply chain to the shelf. SymphonyAI’s connected retail software breaks down operational silos so retailers can make swift decisions confidently without blind spots. Through a source-agnostic data onboarding framework, Cinde delivers AI-powered insights across critical functions, including customers, sales, promotions, assortment, space, supply chain, and real-time shelf and store conditions, for efficiency and profitability at every level.

Headquartered in Abingdon, Virginia, K-VA-T Food Stores (www.foodcity.com) operates 158 retail outlets throughout Kentucky, Virginia, Tennessee, Georgia and Alabama with more than 18,500 employees. Food City offers multiple private label lines through its participation in the Topco Cooperative (www.topco.com).

SymphonyAI (www.symphonyai.com) is an enterprise AI SaaS company for digital transformation across critical and resilient growth verticals, including retail, CPGs, financial services, manufacturing, media, and IT and enterprise service management. Since its founding in 2017, SymphonyAI has grown to 2500 employees.