Beyond Ice Cream: How Our AI-Enabled Freezers are Boosting Sales and Efficiency
Our freezer cabinets now offer more than just ice cream—they’re equipped with advanced image capture and AI technology that monitors stock levels in real time, provides data-driven insights to our sales teams, and helps retailers maximize revenue. Currently, 100,000 of our ice cream freezers worldwide are AI-enabled, and we aim to increase that number to 350,000 by the end of 2025.
The integration of image capture and AI ensures that retailers always have best-selling products in stock, leading to a remarkable 30% increase in retail orders and sales in some regions.
Ice cream is a popular on-the-go treat, and with 3 million strategically placed freezer cabinets in shops, airports, and supermarkets globally, Unilever is leveraging AI to meet consumer demand more effectively.
Sarosh Hussain, Head of Digital Selling Systems for Ice Cream, emphasizes the importance of product availability: “To capture impulse sales, our brands must be in the right place at the right time. If a customer stops at a petrol station to buy a Magnum and the freezer is empty, the sale is lost.”
Expanding AI Across Our Freezer Fleet Most of our ice cream brands are distributed through retailers with extensive networks. Ensuring these retailers consistently stock our bestsellers was a key factor in incorporating AI into our freezers.
We are currently working to install this technology in 30% of our top-selling ice cream cabinets in priority markets. So far, 100,000 freezers have been upgraded, with a target of 350,000 by 2025.
Smart Restocking with AI Each freezer is equipped with software that captures images of the stock inside the cabinet. These images are automatically sent to the cloud, where AI analyzes the stock levels, identifies our ice cream brands, and generates orders for distributors.
“It’s like having two eyes on our stock every day,” says Sarosh. This allows distributors to know exactly what stock is needed when retailers place orders.
Boosting Sales with Actionable Data The impact of AI on retail orders and sales has been significant, with increases ranging from 8% in Turkey to 12% in the US and up to 30% in Denmark. In Hungary, where nearly 10% of our freezer fleet is AI-enabled, the system has been integrated with distributors’ systems, resulting in nearly 5% of orders being generated through AI recommendations.
Enhancing Sales Teams and Reducing Costs The data from AI-enabled freezers is also helping to upskill our sales teams by providing insights that improve their ability to cross-sell and upsell. Knowing stock needs in advance allows sales teams to focus on new business development and merchandising rather than order processing.
Accurate stock data also enables distributors to optimize their delivery routes, reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Aligning Data with Marketing The data from our freezers offers valuable insights into the success of new product launches and marketing campaigns. By analyzing this data, we can assess the impact of campaigns on sales, determine whether new products are adding value or cannibalizing core offerings, and adjust promotional strategies accordingly.
The Future of AI-Enabled Freezers Equipping 350,000 freezers with AI will provide a vast dataset for analyzing product visibility and supply chain strategy, ultimately driving ice cream sales and better serving our customers.”
