How Chudo Market and FORTA Improved Assortment Management with LEAFIO AI

LLC Toliman Plus (Chudo Market and FORTA) achieved the following measurable outcomes after implementation:

Metric	Result	Business Impact
Out-of-matrix products	20-25% reduction	Better control over SKU status eliminated unnecessary items from shelves
Labor effort	~50% reduction in manual workload	Tasks requiring 20+ team members now handled with significantly less effort
Matrix update speed	2.5x faster	Changes requiring up to 5 actions per SKU now take just 1-2
Inventory turnover	Improved [figure pending]	SKU lifecycle management and planned rotation increased product movement

Company: LLC "Toliman Plus"
Retail brands: Chudo Market, FORTA
Region: Eastern Europe
Formats: Supermarket retail + wholesale distribution
Network: 43 stores, 2 distribution centers, wholesale division
Assortment: ~15,000 SKUs (food, non-food, private label, fresh)

LLC "Toliman Plus" is an Eastern European retail and distribution company operating two supermarket chains: Chudo Market and FORTA. The combined network runs 43 stores and 2 distribution centers alongside a wholesale division. The company manages over 15,000 active SKUs across food, non-food, private label, and fresh categories, operating in both retail and wholesale formats simultaneously.

As Toliman Plus expanded, assortment management became a bottleneck in daily operations. What had worked at a smaller scale turned into a fragmented, time-consuming process across both retail chains.

Teams relied on ERP systems and spreadsheets, switching between tools to update matrices. With over 15,000 items, even small changes required careful manual handling and frequent double-checking across Chudo Market and FORTA store configurations.

More than 20 employees were involved in maintaining assortment matrices. Instead of focusing on category strategy or performance analysis, most of their time went to routine updates and inter-team coordination.

Not all stores are identical. Chudo Market and FORTA locations vary in shelf space, layout, and local demand patterns. The existing system could not easily accommodate store-specific configurations, so most locations were managed with the same logic regardless of their actual conditions.

Adding or removing a product required up to 5 separate actions per SKU. This slowed down reactions to demand changes and created unnecessary friction in day-to-day operations across both chains.

Products removed from the assortment often stayed on shelves. Over time this led to cluttered displays, reduced visibility for active items, and slower product rotation across the network.

Assortment matrix changes were not automatically reflected in shelf layouts. Teams had to manually align matrices with planograms for both chains, a step that increased workload and introduced inconsistencies in-store.

To address these challenges, Toliman Plus implemented LEAFIO Assortment Performance, an assortment management software solution, across the Chudo Market and FORTA networks. The goal was to centralize matrix management and create a direct link between assortment planning and in-store execution.

• Centralized assortment management: all matrix decisions moved to one system, eliminating reconciliation across multiple tools
• Flexible clustering and store-level control: teams can manage both entire clusters and individual stores within them, adapting assortment to specific store conditions without breaking overall logic
• Simplified SKU lifecycle management: adding or removing items became significantly faster, reducing day-to-day operational friction
• Automated synchronization with shelf execution: SKU statuses are transferred to merchandising processes automatically; active items stay on shelves, inactive ones are removed from planograms
• Planned product rotation: teams can set SKU activation and deactivation dates in advance, enabling structured handling of seasonal and promotional items

With LEAFIO AI, assortment decisions were no longer held in planning. They were reflected directly in store execution across all Chudo Market and FORTA locations.

"Significant efficiency in working with the assortment matrix: before, adding an item to the store matrix took at least 5 clicks. Now it's just one simple click."

Olga Leonova, Head of Non-Food Procurement at Chudo Market and FORTA supermarket chains. 

Beyond the headline numbers, the most significant shift was in how teams work daily across both retail chains:

• Category managers now spend less time on routine tasks and more time on analysis and strategic decisions
• Shelf execution became more consistent, with fewer unpredictable variations between Chudo Market and FORTA locations
• Teams can manage assortment at both cluster and individual store level
• SKU lifecycle planning, including future activation and deactivation, became part of standard operations
• Product rotation improved, especially for seasonal and promotional items

For LLC Toliman Plus, assortment management across the Chudo Market and FORTA chains shifted from a manual, resource-heavy process to a structured and scalable workflow.

By simplifying daily operations, improving control over SKU lifecycle, and connecting assortment decisions to in-store execution, the team reduced workload by around 50%, accelerated matrix updates 2.5x, and cut out-of-matrix products by 20-25%. The result is a category team that spends more time on decisions that drive performance.

Struggling with assortment management across multiple store formats?

See how LEAFIO Assortment Performance can help your retail chain reduce manual workload and improve SKU control.

Book a demo at leafio.ai