Abingdon, VA: K-VA-T and ECRS have announced the successful launch of the grocery industry’s first unified transaction system, CATAPULT®. After installing the CATAPULT POS system at all of K-VA-T’s Super-Dollar-branded stores and fuel centers, the two companies have now successfully launched CATAPULT at K-VA-T’s Food-City-branded supermarkets.
From left to right: Jim Griffin (VP of Strategic Initiatives, ECRS), Pete Catoe (Founder & CEO, ECRS), Don Mascola (VP of Information Technology, K-VA-T), and Mark Noble (VP of Development, ECRS) at ECRS Headquarters in Boone, NC. A key objective for K-VA-T has been to reduce operational complexity by leveraging CATAPULT’s Unified Transaction Logic™, a software-based system that serves up and unifies all transaction touch points within stores and online, across the enterprise, in real time. The proprietary Unified Transaction Logic™ solution allows store operators to execute transactions with speed and precision, no matter how complex, where, when, and how customers choose to shop. This unified transactional experience encompasses Point of Sale, Direct Payments, Self Checkout, Pharmacy Rx Integration, Click & Collect, Smartphone Checkout, Scales, and Fuel.
The first Food City installation, leveraging Unified Transaction Logic™, unifies POS, Self Checkout, Pharmacy Rx Integration, Direct Payments, and Fuel onto one single, seamless platform in real time. Additionally, CATAPULT has exceeded all of Food City’s extensive promotional and consumer rewards requirements, while simultaneously increasing transactional throughput.
“We’re very proud,” said Jim Griffin, VP of Strategic Initiatives. “The smooth launch reflects not only the adaptability and power of the CATAPULT platform, but also how well our companies work together. We appreciate K-VA-T as industry leaders, as customers, and as business partners. And we’ve made lasting friends in the process.”
“Working with ECRS, the K-VA-T team has been able to successfully deploy CATAPULT on time and on budget. It has surpassed our greatest performance expectations,” said Don Mascola, K-VA-T’s VP of IT. “Unified Transaction Logic™ has given us a dramatic increase in transaction speed and power while reducing our reliance on third party silos. We can now process a higher volume of customers at much faster speeds, making our customers the ultimate winner of this new deployment.”
ABOUT K-VA-T
Food City dates back to 1918 when a store was opened in Greeneville, Tennessee. But K-VA-T Food Stores’ official beginning took place in 1955 when founder Jack C. Smith—with his father, Curtis and uncle, Earl—opened the first store in Grundy, Virginia. Since that time, Food City has grown in leaps through the acquisition of several Piggly Wiggly operations in Southwest Virginia and Eastern Kentucky, along with Quality Foods/Food City, White Stores, Winn Dixie, and BI-LO units in east Tennessee. The company has also grown steadily by expansion into new market areas while remodeling and replacing existing locations as needed to best serve their customers. K-VA-T Food Stores owns and operates the 1.1 million square-foot Food City Distribution Center, located in Abingdon, Virginia and continues to grow every year through our profit-sharing plan. “About 14% of the company is owned by our associates,” says Steve Smith, K-VA-T President and CEO. K-VA-T Food Stores ranked 50th on Supermarket New’s list of the Top 75 Retailers & Wholesalers for 2019, 191st on Forbes list of America’s Largest Private Companies in 2018, and 35th on Progressive Grocer’s list of The Super 50 for 2019.
ABOUT ECRS
ECRS is a US-based, Certified Evergreen™ transaction and retail solutions provider, with a successful track record that stretches over 30 years. ECRS future-proofs local and regional retailers to win in today’s market, while preparing them for tomorrow’s opportunities. ECRS’ revolutionary CATAPULT® system is the market’s only truly unified transaction platform, running in thousands of locations across North America. With CATAPULT, the point of sale, self-checkout, deli scales, fuel pump, pharmacy, web-store, inventory, customer loyalty, back office, e-commerce, and enterprise management all share one single transactional logic. Unified Transaction Logic™ empowers retailers to prosper by providing actionable business intelligence across their enterprise. Unifying hardware, software, and services, ECRS offers friction-free, cost-saving solutions that increase customer engagement while transforming the consumer experience.