These days it seems everyone wants to automate everything. But in grocery the most valuable commercial lever isn’t an algorithm – it’s still a person.
That might sound unfashionable in a market obsessed with speed, scale and data. But for most suppliers, the commercial heartbeat of their business still runs through a handful of relationships – and the conversations, negotiations, favours, and fallouts they entail. These aren’t just footnotes to a contract. They are the contract. And they are not reducible to code, yet.
Transactional environment
Everyone is under constant pressure to prove they are growing their business – typically by hitting challenging targets. This creates a fast-paced transactional environment, especially in food and drink sales. It’s tempting to see why some believe things could be improved with automation, but this misses the point about how deals get done and are made profitable in the first instance.
So is AI about to change everything? There is no doubt that automation, analytics and predictive tools have a role to play in commercial trading.
But to believe they will replace the trading relationship any time soon is, in my mind, to misunderstand how the grocery business works. Algorithms don’t do tension – they don’t bluff, or recalibrate under pressure, or remember who owes who what, or why. AI doesn’t take calls on a Friday night from a buyer who needs a favour.
Relational trading resists automation because it’s built on trust and experience, not just factual terms. It’s a game of give and take, of timing and tone. And while tech can support that process, I don’t believe it can replace it just yet.
We like to think you can model behaviour, but how does instinct get built in, particularly when a decision may appear irrational in the here and now? You can log the outcome of a negotiation, but not the eyebrow raise, or subtle concession that won it.
The human element
There’s also the matter of accountability. A human being can be held to a promise, reminded of a favour, or challenged to deliver. AI, on the other hand, for all its logic and learning, lacks that memory or moral instinct, that sense of shared history, of credits banked and reciprocated – which makes it possible to ‘trade’ competitively.
This is something uniquely human, and often what keeps difficult deals alive and eventually executed, when perhaps logic might have deemed a different outcome was favourable.
AI can analyse patterns, but it can’t truly collaborate. In a tight-margin environment, success often comes from mutual problem-solving – suppliers and retailers working together to find shared value. That means compromise, creativity, and sometimes putting the relationship above short-term gain. It’s a human strength and it drives better outcomes.
More importantly, the human element is good for the industry. It allows smaller or mid-sized suppliers to punch above their weight. It rewards empathy, agility, creativity – all things that are hard to scale but crucial to sustained value. In a world where the playing field is rarely level, it’s often that personal connection that keeps the door open.
So yes, embrace the tech. Use it to prepare better, to track more accurately, to back up your instincts with data. But don’t forget what really moves the numbers. The best deals in grocery are still done between people who understand each other – and who compete to get the upper hand in a game that requires everyone to win at least some of the time. Try getting ChatGPT to deliver that outcome for you!
AI might optimise the transaction, but humans still decide who wins the deal.
Ben Lewis, chief sales officer at Salitix
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