The rise in retail foodservice is a perfect fit for the continued evolution of fresh ordering software.

“Circana reports 6 to 7% growth in deli prepared,” said Mike Weber, chief marketing officer of Upshop. “That gets us really excited. Fresh ordering has always included ingredients. What you typically see is that no matter where you are, it’s really hard to manage all those different ingredients, especially if you have sub-recipes.”

That’s not all Upshop is excited about in 2025 when it comes to fresh ordering. The company recently introduced a new total store ordering product, which covers all fresh perimeter and other departments, not just one or two.

“It unifies all ordering in a single platform,” Weber said. “For us it was the next critical step. Customers may used our platform for some departments — why leave these disconnected? That’s always been the promise (to create a unified system), and now we’re there.”

Now is the time, Weber said, for retailers to “really understand and test the limits of their stores.” Store employees’ time is more sparse and pressured than ever before, and to keep stores as optimal as possible, and to make sure you’re not missing that next sale, cutting-edge fresh ordering software is one of the most important things you can do.

That’s especially important for the perimeter. It’s all about “getting your margins back,” Weber said, and it’s the fresh departments where those margins are easiest to find.

“It’s how you win vs. Amazon, it’s how you drive margin. Putting all those things together is a recipe for sustainable growth,” Weber said. “Consumers want more fresh experiences, more recipes, more healthy habits that need to be delivered to.”

With its new total store ordering platform, “everything came together at right time” for Upshop, he said.

“We now have our intelligence layer for retailers to tap into. Smarter orders, maximizing their stores, getting the most of their people, not spending hours and hours on ordering.”

Weber said Upshop doesn’t see anything like its new system in the industry. It’s a perfect solution for all kinds of in-store scenarios. For instance, what happens when a person who handles the ordering is sick?

With the new system, ordering  is back “up and running in matter of days, not months,” he said.

“All these barriers have existed, always trying to solve problems by department. Now you can solve for the entire store.”

Also at the top of Upshop’s to-do list in 2025 is helping customers use its fresh ordering and other technologies to ramp up for FSMA 204 compliance — which, while recently delayed, is still top of mind for US grocers.

“A big part of FSMA is, are you managing your receiving, everything that comes in, and can you trace it as it moves through,” Weber said. “No matter how FSMA evolves, retailers are going to a unified process to have full visibility of all these different items.”

The more retailers Upshop brings on board, the better its fresh ordering and other technologies become, he added.

“We can use what we learn across the data without compromising data integrity, which makes the system more robust.”