Our Mission
Reduce food waste through automation
Shelf Engine is transforming how grocery stores buy highly perishables. Everyday, we help our customers significantly increase profits and drastically reduce food waste in thousands of retail stores around the country.
Our Principles
We believe the ‘how’ matters as much as the ‘what’ we do
Shelf Engine is growing fast—and so is every member of our team. We are boldly driving our mission forward thanks to our engaged, high-performing, creative team who is committed to these shared principles.
Shelf Engine Principles
Make the first move
We're all leaders. Don't wait for someone else to do it, be bold and take the initiative to get things started.
Make better decisions
Repeated good decisions have a virtuous compounding effect. Treat decision making with care.
Be furiously curious
Investigate how and why things work the way they do.
Commit and deliver
Deliver the best results, fast.
Have empathy
Seek to understand your teammates and our customer. Reflect what you see, support one another, collaborate, and camaraderie will ensue.
Invent Solutions
The answer won’t always be obvious. The question isn’t can it work, but how.
Be authentic
Bring your authentic self to your work and all your interactions. Even when things are tough, be respectful.
Our Story
How it all started
There’s got to be a better way... Stefan had discovered the problem of food waste first hand while running Molly's, a grab & go food company he started in 2009. By 2014, Stefan had grown the company to over 400 regional retail locations. But ordering accurately proved to be challenging, as growing Molly’s food waste was at 28% and was eating into their bottom line.
Hungry for a better solution, Stefan talked to his friend (and co-founder) Bede Jordan about the problem. At the time, Bede was working at Microsoft as the HoloLens Principle Software Engineering Lead. With Stefan’s actuarial science background and Bede’s engineering brilliance, they were able to build a model and app to considerably improve perishable food forecasting.
The result? Cutting Molly’s food waste in half, down to 13%. In 2016, Stefan and Bede quit their day jobs to launch Shelf Engine—with the mission of transforming the food supply chain by helping grocery stores reduce waste and increase sales through intelligent forecasting. They were fortunate to have funding since day one, thanks to Initialized, Liquid2, and the Founders Co-op.
Today, Shelf Engine is managing orders for the best grocers in thousands of stores nationwide. Drastically increasing their customer’s profits by eliminating shrink and out-of-stocks.
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January, 2014
Stefan and Bede came up with the idea of Shelf Engine
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October, 2016
Shelf Engine is incorporated
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October, 2016
Moved into first office… in a basement
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February, 2017
First employee hired (he’s still here!)
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March, 2017
First customer, Metier Cafe
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June, 2018
Joined YC S18 cohort
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August, 2018
Raised $4.3mil seed round
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October, 2018
First national client, Whole Foods
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December, 2018
Team is 8 employees
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February, 2020
Raised $12mill Series A
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February, 2020
Shelf field team launched
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May, 2020
Moved to Olson Kundig designed office in the Pacific Building
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November, 2020
Team hits 100 employees
