Category: Future of Grocery
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Kroger has “soft opened” the first of its Ocado-powered automated Customer Fulfillment Centers in Monroe, Ohio, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen said during an earnings call this week. According to Dayton 24/7, the new facility is 335,000 square feet, costs $55 million and employs 400 people. The new warehouse will use totes on rails to help…
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“Farm-to-phone” grocery platform Cropswap today announced a partnership with Nourish LA to bring healthier food donations to underserved residents of Los Angeles. Food insecurity, which the USDA defines as “the limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods, or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways,” has increased…
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Robot delivery company Refraction AI announced today that it has raised $4.2 million in new seed funding. The round was led by Pillar VC, with participation from eLab Ventures, Osage Venture Partners, Trucks Venture Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Chad Laurans (founder of SimpliSafe), Invest Michigan, and others. Based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Refraction’s take on…
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A couple weeks ago, college was the latest potential growth market for ghost kitchens. Today, it’s big-box retailers like Walmart. Recently an Ontario, Canada-based company called Ghost Kitchens launched its first-ever location inside a Walmart store in the city of St. Catherine’s. It’s not the first-ever ghost kitchen concept from the company, but it is…
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Grocery giant Albertsons announced today that it has partnered with Tortoise to pilot remote-controlled robot grocery delivery at two Safeway stores in Northern California. Tortoise is a little different from other players in the robot delivery space. First, the Tortoise bot is bigger than other rover bots. It can carry 120 pounds and is meant…
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As they come to market, automated grocery fulfillment solutions are taking a number of different shapes. Companies like Takeoff Technologies and Dematic are building them into the backs of existing stores, while Kroger and Ocado are building out big, standalone smart warehouses. Unlike those other players in the space, Urbx wants its automated fulfillment center…
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Walmart Canada is adding automated kiosk pickup to one of its stores in the Toronto area, which, the company says, will be the first of its kind in that country. In a corporate blog post published yesterday, Walmart Canada outlined a number of moves the company is making to accelerate its e-commerce efforts, including: Building…
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Apparently investors have been shopping for online grocery startups, as there was a spate of funding news in the sector across North America and Europe over the last 12 hours. Grocery delivery service Instacart raised another $265 million from existing investors including Andreessen Horowitz, Sequoia Capital, D1 Capital Partners, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC,…
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Gatik, which makes autonomous delivery vehicles for the middle-mile, announced today that it has received $997,706 million CAD (~$788,511 USD) from Ontario’s Autonomous Vehicle Innovation Network (AVIN) R&D Partnership Fun, along with $8 million CAD (~$6.32 million USD) in unspecified “industry contribution.” The new funding will go towards winterizing Gatik’s autonomous driving technology. Gatik develops…
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Walmart announced today that it is dropping the $35 minimum order requirement for its Express delivery service. The move comes during a time of record-breaking online grocery shopping and increased competition among retailers to grab consumer dollars. Walmart launched its two-hour Express delivery service last May, during the height of the first wave of the…
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My online grocery shopping and curbside pickup with Walmart is pretty delightful except for one thing: all the plastic bags. I’m not sure if it’s corporate policy or what, but it seems like Walmart’s pick-and-pack employees give just about every item its own bag. The result is a ton of waste (and just as much…
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Drug store chain Walgreens announced today that it is partnering with Instacart to roll out same-day delivery service across the U.S. According to the announcement, tens of thousands of Walgreen’s items are now available for delivery via Instacart across Illinois, with the program set to expand nationwide to roughly 8,000 stores over the coming weeks.…
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