AF Blakemore & Son Ltd has chosen AI-driven workforce technology from Logile, Inc. as part of a move to standardise labour practices and improve workforce consistency across its retail operations.
The SPAR wholesaler and retailer, which operates more than 240 SPAR stores and serves over 900 communities across England and Wales, has signed up to Logile’s Labor Planning suite to replace a largely manual, Excel-based approach to workforce management. The agreement was signed in September 2025, with initial implementation now under way.
AF Blakemore said it was seeking a single, intelligent platform to connect labour decisions more closely to business performance, while delivering a more predictable and consistent customer experience across its diverse store estate.
John Gallifant, head of central operations at AF Blakemore, said the previous approach made it difficult to manage labour effectively across the business.
“We had a limited and very manual approach to managing labour consistently across our estate, which meant we weren’t always achieving our goal of having the right people doing the right things at the right times,” he said. “Logile gives us the clarity and control to make better decisions, align labour with key business metrics, and ultimately create a consistent and exceptional experience for both our customers and our teams.”
The retailer said its former system lacked the sophistication to reflect factors such as seasonality, evolving store formats and performance trends. By adopting Logile’s platform, AF Blakemore aims to link labour planning directly to operational data, improving forecasting accuracy, accountability and productivity at store level.
Logile’s Labor Planning suite allows retailers to model workforce requirements, forecast demand and build optimised staffing plans that balance service levels, operational targets and budget constraints. The system is designed to scale across multiple locations and formats, an important factor for multi-site convenience operators.
Purna Mishra, founder and chief executive of Logile, said the partnership marked a strategic step for the wholesaler.
“AF Blakemore’s investment in modernising its labour planning represents a strategic step towards building a more connected, data-driven retail organisation,” he said. “We’re proud to partner with such a respected name in UK retail.”
AF Blakemore expects the rollout to deliver long-term benefits including improved labour productivity, more accurate forecasting and a scalable framework to support future operational optimisation as the business evolves.