California distributor uses AI-ordering to grow its business 

Artificial Intelligence is helping a Lake Tahoe-area produce distributor process orders more efficiently and grow its business, while reallocating labor resources. 

Produce Plus, Carnelian Bay, CA-based multigenerational distributor, has been using an AI tool from Choco for about a year for inbound orders. 

“We have voicemail and email orders, about 80-100 a night, and we used to write out orders by hand and print them out,” said owner Bob Habeger. “Now we use Choco AI to save time and reduce errors. It probably saves us two hours each evening, and now our sales team can do more personal sales.” 

Produce Plus delivers mostly specialty and organic produce from the Sacramento-area, where it has a cross-docking facility, to customers around Lake Tahoe, as well as Truckee, CA, and Reno, NV. 

Habeger said the company has been expanding into mainline produce items, delivering four days a week. 

Since starting to use the Choco tool, customers can use its app and set up their own orders from Produce Plus’ library of items, which then sends the orders directly into its ERP (enterprise resource planning) system. 

The AI ordering tool understands different accents and speaking styles and learns customer preferences over time, Habeger said. 

He said AI is definitely fueling its growth. 

“We’re always growing, and we’ll probably see more in this second year now that it’s better set up, and we only need one person to oversee the orders,” Habeger said. “It’s getting more accurate all the time and probably saves us an employee or two doing orders, so we can expand our routes and reduce paperwork for drivers.”