Case Study: Kimberton Whole Foods achieves centralized inventory control, halves warehouse stock and cuts perishable waste by 90% with ECRS CATAPULT retail automation

How Automating Key Areas can Yield Profit Growth, Opportunity, and Efficiency

Kimberton Whole Foods is an independently owned natural grocery chain with four locations and a central warehouse in Pennsylvania that had been managing operations manually. Facing labor‑intensive pricing, slow checkouts, inconsistent inventory across stores, and wasted perishable stock, the owner turned to ECRS and implemented the CATAPULT retail automation suite, including CATAPULT perpetual inventory, the ECRS warehouse system, ECRS Gateway supplier integration, and the digital Enterprise Controller/server.

ECRS centralized Kimberton’s buying and inventory through a warehouse and Distributed Purchase Orders, automated order/receiving via ECRS Gateway, and deployed perpetual inventory across ~15,000 SKUs and 10 POS registers. The result: warehouse inventory was cut in half, excess freezer and perishable inventory fell by at least 90%, one person can receive all stores’ inventory in about 35 hours per week, faster checkout and reporting, reduced store room space, and improved buying decisions—outcomes Kimberton reports paid for the new Enterprise Server in under a year.

Kimberton Whole Foods

Terry Brett

Owner