October 16, 2025

“Forecasting is the thing!”

With that vision statement, retailers Fidaa Mohrez, senior director of operational systems for H&S Energy Group, and Jhaddaka “JD” Leverette, retail analyst and IT manager at Prince Oil/Junction Management, offered their experience and advice during the NACS Show Education Session titled “Effective Inventory Management With Real-Time Data.”

In 2022, shrink from theft, errors and loss added up to $112 billion for the industry. Mohrez and Leverette urged attendees to keep a constant eye—both physical and virtual—on the basics: forecasting, stocking and managing out-of-stocks and shrink.

“Shrink comes from many different sources,” said Mohrez. “Yes, shoplifting, but also deliveries, data entry and spoilage.”

Similarly, solutions can come from a wide variety of options, from continuous training to adopting AI solutions.

Leverette leans on training and supervision to manage forecasting and delivery oversight. This includes embracing a “super tough” food supervisor who keeps an eye on waste.

“We had an instance where a store cooked a large chicken batch during off hours, at 3 p.m. Why?” she said. “You can bet they wrote that down as waste, and they are taking it home. And they had a great dinner.” With the oversight of the food supervisor, that never happened again.

Similarly, Leverette also empowers seasoned managers to turn away a delivery that doesn’t make sense for their particular store. The manager “knows if an amount of product is not going to sell,” she said.

Meanwhile, Mohrez is testing a variety of AI tools to help forecast proper order sizes and act as a double-check to match deliveries with invoices.

“AI will match the delivery with the invoice,” he said. “I’m testing it now. It’s going to solve a huge problem with electronic data interchange” and making sure the numbers align.

All these tests are worth the effort, he said. “If you have the right process, if you have checks and balances in place, then you know you have the right products in the store and on the shelves.”

—Steve Holtz