2025 Grocery Industry Icons & Innovators

Leon Zhang is the Co-Founder and CEO of BetterBasket, an AI-powered pricing platform built for grocery retailers. Drawing from his experience launching grocery at Uber Eats, Leon saw firsthand how hard it was for grocers to make fast, profitable pricing decisions, especially in a market where costs shift quickly and competition is fierce. He dropped out of his MBA at Wharton to build BetterBasket as he saw how new advancements in technology could help grocers navigate inflation, supply chain disruptions, and ongoing macroeconomic policy volatility.

Since its launch in 2024, BetterBasket has built a solution that combines real-time competitive data, elasticity modeling, and AI to give grocers clear, automated pricing recommendations that protect margin while staying sharp on the shelf. Since launching, BetterBasket has partnered with leading regional banners like H Mart, Fairway Market, and Supermercados Econo to help them better understand which items to promote, when to hold price, and where to close gaps against competitors. BetterBasket is backed by leading investors like Y Combinator, the co-founder of YouTube, and the ex-CEO of Tesco.