Frugl (ASX:FGL) signs bDigital deal for Southeast Asian expansion

Frugl Group has signed a memorandum of understanding through privately-owned Frugl Operations to establish a joint initiative with fast-expanding merchant payment service provider bDigital focused in on growing its platform across southeast Asia.

The partners will work to co-develop a new Frugl service for Thailand-based merchants to secure real-time inventory stocking and offer promotions to a new digital member base for reducing food waste and making sales.

bDigital will establish a new Thai operating subsidiary to take control of its legacy payments business and will retain Frugl’s services to optimise the network and facilitate installations and agreements with a customer base including large-scale supermarkets and shopping malls.

The greater vision is that the service will eventually be offered as part of a fully integrated retail marketplace, using artificial intelligence to reward shoppers with targeted offers based on their spending patterns and other data leveraged by the system.

Frugl has been busy enhancing its price-comparison platform with AI and is now in the process of acquiring Bangkok-based Trienpont International to accelerate the app’s machine-learning capabilities.

The platform already allows users to compare prices of tens of thousands of grocery products across thousands of Australian retailers while providing those same businesses with behavioural shopping data.

Well-known Western Australian company director and philanthropist John Poynton bought into Frugl’s comparative vision last year, aiming to deliver innovations into a food tech market expected to see significant growth and reach $US343 billion ($523 billion) by 2027.

Increased reliance on delivery services and online shopping through the COVID pandemic have not gone away, and escalating grocery costs continue to draw attention to price comparison technologies.

Frugl aims to build alongside the market, and now has an initial one-year agreement with bDigital which will begin project planning today, with a visit to prospective anchor merchants scheduled for May 2024 and the milestone first programs secured with new merchants expected before the end of June.

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