Joachim Pinhammer

Kroger is seeing initial success with its ‘The Connected Store’ digitalisation initiative and aims to press ahead further. The company has reported this at its Analyst and Investor Day conference at the end of October. By introducing RFID for bakery products, the US supermarket operator has been able to speed up stock-taking by 70 per cent and halve the amount…

Instacart announced this week that it is discontinuing development of its Caper Cart smart trolley. All systems rolled out to date – several thousand, according to the manufacturer – are set to be phased out of the stores by end of March 2027. The US technology provider intends to shift its investment in brick-and-mortar retail solutions from hardware to software.…

Swedish ICA Group is testing a robot from start-up Cota Robotics, which is designed to restock shelves autonomously. ICA’s Innovation Division is conducting initial live trials at retailer Peter Dinehage’s ICA Nära Roslagstull store in Stockholm. The robot is set to work overnight for the project, so that the shelves are already stocked when the store opens.

Kesko has commissioned Austrian intralogistics specialist Knapp to automate its planned new logistics centre. With the new facility in the municipality of Nurmijärvi, north of Helsinki, the Finnish grocery retailer aims to make its supply chain more efficient and flexible, preparing it for further growth.

Since beginning of this week, Amazon has been blocking Meta’s new AI agent Muse from gaining access to its shopping pages. The company had previously tried in vain to persuade Facebook’s parent company to voluntarily refrain from allowing the bot to make purchases on behalf of consumers at its online shop. This highlights just how fiercely companies are fighting for…

Yesterday, Rewe Group and Mars were jointly honoured with an ECR Award from GS1 Germany for their efforts to bring impulse items to self-checkouts. The partners received the award for their ‘European NextGen Checkout Project’ in the ECR Collaboration Excellence category.

Alcampo has selected Chinese manufacturer Hanshow for a companywide rollout of digital price labels. Auchan Group’s Spanish subsidiary plans to equip all its 507 supermarkets and hypermarkets with ESLs. Before end of this year, it aims to roll out a total of 560,000 labels across 84 of its supermarkets.

Marks & Spencer is using artificial intelligence to ensure sustainable animal welfare at all dairy farms supplying its M&S milk range. The technology utilises cameras already installed in barns and complements the AI-powered monitoring solution provided by CattleEye. The British retail company claims to be the first retailer using AI to monitor animal welfare across its entire milk supply chain.…

Edeka regional subsidiary for Northern Bavaria, Saxony and Thuringia is operating a semi-autonomous grocery store for the first time. The Diska store in the municipality of Obermaßfeld-Grimmenthal in southern Thuringia enables customers to shop autonomously without staff outside regular opening hours. The technology for this so-called hybrid operation is provided by Austrian smart-store specialist Anystore.

Rewe Group’s Centre of Excellence for Agriculture has launched an AI research project to analyse animal welfare, in collaboration with stakeholders from academia and the industry. Advisory board member Max Esser-Geneschen initiated the project, which aims to investigate the potential of camera and sensor technology in livestock farming under real-world conditions.