Slowly but surely, electronic shelf labels (ESL) are also becoming widespread in the United Kingdom. With Lincolnshire Co-op, another regional retail company has now decided to equip 100 stores with digital labels by the end of the year. The electronic labels were first tested in October 2025 at The Bridge Food Store in Newark. The contract was awarded to SoluM. Scotmid and Southern Co-op also use ESL solutions from SoluM, while East of England Co-op purchases from Pricer.
The Manchester-based national Co-operative Group has been introducing digital labels from VusionGroup since summer of this year and aims to have all of its 2,600 outlets equipped with them by the end of 2026. Morrisons also recently decided to equip all of its 497 supermarkets with 10.8 million labels from VusionGroup.
The three largest retail companies in the UK – Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Asda – have been experimenting with ESLs in their stores for around three decades and are announcing more and more projects, but have not yet introduced them across the board. According to information from Retail Optimiser, market leader Tesco is currently negotiating with both VusionGroup and Hanshow.
Saves time and printing costs
The regional Lincolnshire Co-op is investing 4 million British Pounds (4.5 million Euros) to equip 100 stores with SoluM’s Newton Pro labels. The retail company has calculated that its employees currently attach 550 paper labels per store per week, but that this figure can rise to as many as 2,000 when there is a change in the sales promotion period. The ESLs would also save 100,000 British Pounds (113,600 Euros) per year in paper and printing costs.
Andy Warman, CTO at Lincolnshire Co-op. “Embracing digital solutions, such as ESLs, enables us to operate more efficiently and sustainably, while allowing our colleagues to spend more time helping customers.”
