Grocery leaders overwhelmingly believe their fresh department operations perform well. However, most also admit they cannot clearly see what happens inside those departments, according to a new report from workforce technology company Logile Inc.
The Logile 2026 State of Fresh Grocery Operations Industry Report found 89% of retail decision-makers call their fresh operations successful. Yet 74% said they struggle to see clearly across their own produce, meat, deli and bakery counters.
Confidence Runs High, but Blind Spots Persist
Logile released the findings Oct. 1. The company surveyed 200 senior U.S. decision-makers at grocery and multi-location retail organizations in May 2026, using third-party survey platform CensusWide.
Respondents work in store operations, fresh and perishable categories, inventory, supply chain, labor planning, and food safety and compliance.
Only 2% rated their fresh department operations as unsuccessful. Still, 84% described managing fresh as challenging, and 76% said maintaining consistency across locations is hard. Notably, all 200 respondents indicated they see room for improvement.
“Confidence in fresh operations doesn’t mean visibility into it,” said Purna Mishra, founder and CEO of Logile. “Retailers are proud of what their teams accomplish every day, and they should be.”
Fresh Department Operations Grow Harder at Scale
Size compounds the problem. Retailers with 5,000 or more employees reported more difficulty than midsize peers on every measure the survey tracked.
For example, 41% of large retailers called managing fresh “very challenging.” That share nearly doubles the 21% at midsize organizations.
Paradoxically, large companies also called themselves very successful more often than smaller competitors did. Logile attributes the strain to scale, since more locations bring more variation to control and more labor to coordinate.
Related Article: Fresh Produce Are Key to Success in a Supermarket
Shrink and Shopper Perception Raise the Stakes
Fresh carries weight well beyond its own sales. In the survey, 82% agreed these departments play a major role in how customers perceive their stores.
Shoppers say the same. Logile’s companion consumer study, published in June, polled 1,000 U.S. consumers through Pollfish in March 2026. In that research, 91% said fresh departments strongly influence whether they trust a grocery store. Moreover, 78% said they have shopped at a different store because its fresh departments looked better.
Meanwhile, waste continues to climb the agenda. Some 82% of decision-makers agreed that shrink and waste reduction is a growing business priority, rising to 90% among the largest retailers.
Independent industry research points in a similar direction. FMI — The Food Industry Association reported in July that 85% of food retailers consider themselves at least somewhat successful in meeting shrink reduction goals. FMI also noted that retailers now treat shrink as a business-wide issue rather than a loss prevention task alone.
AI and Labor Planning Top the Technology Wish List
Retailers view technology as the way forward. Indeed, 91% said investing in tools for fresh department operations is important.
Decision support driven by artificial intelligence and improved labor planning tied as the most-requested capabilities at 23% each. Shrink and waste reduction followed at 21%, while compliance and food safety management drew 20%.
According to Logile, fragmentation fuels that demand. Recipes, labor standards, schedules, inventory, and shrink reports often live in separate systems. As a result, no single view shows what an item really costs to produce.
“When those decisions live in different places, even strong operators can struggle to see the complete picture,” Mishra said. “Connecting them around one view of demand is where the next opportunity lies.”
What the Findings Mean for Grocers
Taken together, the results suggest confidence is not the issue. Instead, the challenge lies in the blind spots beneath it, which widen as store counts grow.
For operators, the report offers a practical starting point. Leaders can ask whether forecasting, production, labor, and shrink data connect in one place. If not, even strong fresh department operations may hide costs nobody can see.