FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
AI-Driven Shopping List Startup NovaCart Launches 90-Day Pilot With National Grocer FreshMart
FreshMart’s 212 Midwest stores will test NovaCart’s predictive grocery engine, aiming to cut food waste 8% and raise basket size 5% before a potential chain-wide rollout in 2026.
SAN FRANCISCO – November 22, 2025 – NovaCart, a seed-stage artificial-intelligence company that turns shoppers’ phones into auto-building grocery lists, today announced a 90-day pilot program with FreshMart, the 1,100-store supermarket chain headquartered in Minneapolis. Beginning December 1, the app will be integrated into FreshMart’s loyalty platform across 212 locations in Illinois and Wisconsin, giving roughly 1.3 million loyalty members real-time suggestions based on household history, local weather and in-store inventory.
Food-waste reduction has become a board-level priority for U.S. grocers after the 2024 USDA report showing supermarkets discarded 5.9 million tons of edible food last year—an 11% increase versus 2022. Independent research published this month by the Harvard Business Review found that AI-driven list builders can cut over-purchasing in half and lift gross margin by 1.4 percentage points when paired with dynamic pricing . “Retailers leave money on the table every time a shopper forgets an item or buys something that rots in the fridge,” said lead author Dr. Karen Poldahl.
FreshMart’s own data echo the trend: 18% of surveyed shoppers say they trash produce weekly because “it seemed like a good idea at the time.” NovaCart’s engine, trained on 50 million anonymized baskets from regional chains, predicts what households will actually consume with 86% accuracy, according to benchmarks released last quarter by the Food Marketing Institute.
“This pilot is not a tech vanity project—it’s a P&L initiative,” said Maya Desai, NovaCart co-founder and CEO. “If we hit our benchmarks—8% waste reduction and a 5% larger basket—FreshMart will roll us out chain-wide next spring, putting our AI in front of 9 million weekly shoppers.”
FreshMart will measure results through daily waste logs, loyalty-card scans and a control group of 50 stores not using the app. Early adopters who opt in will receive personalized push coupons 30 minutes before arrival, nudging them toward items already on their predicted lists. The companies will co-present outcomes at the National Retail Federation’s Big Show in January, a venue historically attended by 37,000 industry executives.
Market appetite for grocery-tech partnerships is surging. Venture funding for retail-AI startups reached $2.7 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, up 34% year-over-year, according to PitchBook. Meanwhile, grocery executives surveyed by McKinsey last month ranked “AI for demand forecasting” as their #1 tech priority for 2026, ahead of self-checkout and autonomous delivery.
NovaCart closed a $4.2 million seed round in September led by Initialized Capital and is in discussions for a Series A that would value the two-year-old company at $35 million. FreshMart, founded in 1981, operates 1,100 stores across 17 states and recorded $18.6 billion in revenue in fiscal 2024.
About NovaCart
NovaCart is a San Francisco–based software company that builds predictive grocery lists for retailers and consumers. Its machine-learning platform converts loyalty data, nutritional preferences and local events into dynamic shopping lists delivered via white-label apps or existing retailer mobile platforms. Founded in 2023, NovaCart is backed by Initialized Capital, Y Combinator and angel investors from Instacart, DoorDash and Target.
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