- Kroger's network upgrade includes boosting connectivity at 2,730 stores from 3 Mbps to a 20 Mbps average, with plans to scale to gigabit
- The supermarket chain is putting AI in the hands of customers and employees
- CIO Jim Clendenen started as a grocery bagger at 19 and says his store-floor roots make him a more effective technology leader
Jim Clendenen started his career at Kroger bagging groceries at age 19. He dreamed of running a store, so he moved through many roles, including the meat department, the deli, working the cash registers, pricing, merchandising strategy and eventually IT. He left Kroger for Harris Teeter, then returned when Kroger acquired that chain.
Clendenen said his mother's take on the acquisition was that Kroger spent $2.5 billion to get her son back.
"Only a mother could see it that way," Clendenen said at a keynote at the Extreme Connect conference in Orlando last week.
Today Clendenen is Kroger's CIO and group VP, leading an IT team of 6,000 people and overseeing the network infrastructure underpinning 2,730 stores across 35 states that serve 11 million customers daily and 63 million households annually, Extreme Networks President and CEO Ed Meyercord said at the event.
That front-line business experience, Clendenen argued, is an operational advantage: when he talks with business partners about technology transitions, he speaks their language.
A network modernization four years in the making
Kroger began modernizing its network four years ago, a shift that enabled new customer experiences including in-store connectivity and app engagement while shopping, Clendenen said. Essential technology including electronic shelf labels, pharmacy temperature sensors, produce freshness sensors, digital coupons and digital fuel pumps all depend on reliable connectivity. Wi-Fi segmentation keeps employee, guest and IoT traffic isolated. Real-time data analytics and cross-team collaboration flow across the same infrastructure.
Kroger eliminated its ]newspaper advertising circulars last year, pushing customers entirely to the mobile app for deals and digital offers. That shift demanded a far more stable and capable network, Clendenen said.
Before upgrading the network, stores were running on 3-megabit circuits — "which was pretty small," Clendenen acknowledged — and are now averaging 20 Mbps with the ability to scale to 50. Plans to reach gigabit networking are underway.
AI in three lanes
Kroger focuses its AI deployment in three areas, Clendenen said.
The first is customer agentics. Shoppers can build a week's worth of menus using specific dietary criteria — vegetarian preferences, spice tolerance, ingredient exclusions — and the system automatically generates a shopping list, submits it to Kroger and schedules delivery or pickup. The capability is largely live on the West Coast. "The results we're seeing from customers leveraging AI for their weekly shopping is incredibly impressive," Clendenen said.
The second is associate enablement. Kroger uses Microsoft Teams combined with Zebra mobile computers and headsets to push task assignments to store workers verbally in real time — whether they need to pull cooked chickens from the rotisserie or take out the trash. "It's like Siri, but it's called Barney," named for company founder Barney Kroger, Clendenen said.
The third AI focus is software development. Kroger is using Claude — Anthropic's AI — for code writing and quality assurance.
More than a retailer
Kroger's operational footprint extends well beyond the store floor. The company manufactures 36% of its own products, making it the ninth largest producer of consumer packaged goods in the United States, Meyercord said. Connectivity plays a central role there too: keeping production lines running, tracking inventory and ensuring quality in real time. In distribution centers, it enables supply-chain automation and end-to-end visibility linking suppliers, shipments and demand.
When Kroger chose its technology partners for network modernization, it looked beyond specs. It sought partners with shared values on customers and go-to-market strategy, Clendenen said. That led Kroger to Extreme Networks.
Zero Hunger | Zero Waste
Kroger and Extreme are partnering on an initiative to reduce food insecurity. One in eight Americans goes hungry, while 30-40% of the nation's food supply goes to waste. Kroger's Zero Hunger | Zero Waste initiative aims to repurpose surplus food, reduce hunger and improve environmental outcomes. Extreme has contributed hardware and funding to the program, helping to provide more than 25 million meals.