LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Center for Advancing Retail & Technology (CART) and Winsight Grocery Business today announced the Retail Innovation Pitch Webcast (advancingretail.org/innovation) designed to bring relevant and transformative innovation to the entire food retail industry. This year, for the first time, the CART pitch event is being opened up to all industry members to participate via a Webcast. CART has run the pitch as a private event for top food retailers and wholesalers for several years.
The Pitch Webcast leverages the pipeline of over 1,000 new startups CART looks at every year to curate the top solutions from across the US and international markets looking to enter the US marketplace.
“The speed and volume of innovation in commerce is staggering,” said Sterling Hawkins, who runs Venture Relations at CART. “There is no way retailers and brands can internally keep pace with industry transformation coming from emerging technologies such as robotics, AR/VR, Artificial Intelligence and IoT.”
The program will be run twice a year and will give emerging technology companies an opportunity to pitch the Webcast participants and key panelists from companies such as Supervalu, Lowes Foods, Albertsons and others. Attendees will learn about top new and curated innovation coming into retail.
“We at Grocery Business are redefining grocery trade media with our commitment to advancing the incredible transformation taking place in retail industry, where the intersection of technology and food is the crux of driving consumer engagement and sales," affirmed Jeffrey Friedman, EVP of Winsight Grocery Business.
“This program can serve as the in-house innovation lab or incubator for retailers and brands,” explained Sterling Hawkins. “It is designed to act as an accelerator for the broader retail industry, especially important now that retail innovation is being increasingly driven from outside forces such as rapid adoption of consumer technology and new competitors like Amazon/Whole Foods and Google.”
The Retail Innovation Pitch Webcast will run at 2pm ET on May 15, 2018, with startup applications due by April 13, 2018.
Applications can be accepted at: advancingretail.org/innovation
To
register to attend the Webcast: advancingretail.org/innovationwebinar
Winners of the pitch will receive, $25,000 in CART services, and may qualify for a $25,000 cash investment from CART partners.
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About CART
CART is Advancing Retail by connecting the
industry to innovation. Retailers, wholesalers and brands utilize CART
to find, research and connect with solutions appropriate for their
businesses. Solution providers use CART as go-to-market tool that
connects them directly to their target retail audience, all the way into
the brick and mortar store itself. CART has unparalleled insight into
what’s next in retail and shares this information regularly through
multiple channels.