This week Kroger announced a collaboration with Gatik, a company specializing in autonomous middle-mile logistics, to utilize autonomous box trucks in Dallas, Texas. According to the announcement, the partnership aims to enhance delivery frequency, reliability, and responsiveness for customers while streamlining costs and increasing efficiency throughout the supply chain.
Starting in the second quarter of 2023, Gatik’s medium-duty autonomous box trucks will be responsible for transporting fresh products from Kroger’s Customer Fulfillment Center (CFC) in Dallas to several retail locations. These trucks are fitted with a 20-foot cold chain-capable box, designed for the safe and efficient transportation of ambient, refrigerated, and frozen goods.
The two companies believe the collaboration will provide Kroger customers with an expanded range of same-day pick-up times and more flexible order cut-off times. Gatik will handle the transportation of groceries, foodstuffs, and general merchandise for 12 hours daily, seven days a week.
Gatik’s autonomous middle mile solution will assist Kroger in addressing the needs of customers who shop online and in-store, offering quicker and more dependable access to products. Since commencing commercial operations in 2019, Gatik says it has successfully delivered half a million customer orders using its robo-trucks.
The deal is another win for Gatik, which has previously secured middle-mile delivery contracts for Walmart in Louisiana and Arkansas and for Loblaws in Canada. The company, which raised over $121 million in funding, was recently rumored to be in talks with Microsoft to raise more funding at a $700 million valuation. The Microsoft deal would be a strategic investment that would result in the autonomous truck company using Microsoft’s Azure cloud computing platform to develop technology for autonomous delivery vehicles.
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