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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

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Carrefour Teams With AiFi to Launch Cashierless Convenience Store in Paris

French retail giant Carrefour announced today the company has teamed up with AiFi, a maker of machine-vision powered checkout tech, to launch a cashierless convenience store called Carrefour Flash.

Unlike Amazon Go or other cashierless platforms that require an app, smart shopping basket, or biometric check-in, AiFi’s technology utilizes a network of cameras on the retailer’s ceiling that monitors a shopper as they move through the store and pick items up off the shelves for purchase. The computer vision’s AI creates a keypoint tracking system that creates a unique digital avatar for each customer. The system identifies each avatar by measuring the unique distance between the customer’s elbow and their hand. Because the system doesn’t require a unique biometric identifier such as a palm, facial or retinal scan, it ensures customer privacy despite using biometric tracking.

As the customer picks up items around the store, the AiFi system creates a virtual shopping cart. The system utilizes a network of 60 HD cameras and over 2000 sensors built into store shelves to track a shopper’s activity and assign it to their avatar. Once done, the customer walks up to a payment terminal to see their shopping basket and total bill within a few seconds.

This move by Carrefour is just the latest example of a retailer embracing tech that frees shoppers of checking out via a cashier. The wave of cashierless shopping formats, which kicked off in earnest with Amazon’s launch of their Amazon Go store in Seattle in early 2018, has only picked up steam over the past year and a half. One reason for the surging interest is the growing expectation from customers for low-contact ways to shop during the pandemic. The other primary driver is persistent labor shortages as food retailers deal with the high turnover of frontline workers; cashierless store concepts give them a way to operate without hiring and training new cashiers.

The Carrefour innovation team incubated and fine-tuned the new concept over the past year at the company’s headquarters in Massy, France. At launch, the new Paris store will have a total of 900 items for sale.

You can get a sneak peek of Carrefour Flash in the video below:

AiFi x Carrefour: Shopping in a flash with Carrefour Flash 10/10

Uber Eats Bulks Up Grocery Delivery Internationally with New Partnerships

Uber Eats is expanding its grocery delivery operations with new partnerships across France, Spain and Europe, according to various reports.

In France, Uber Eats has teamed up with Carrefour, which made the announcement today. Starting on April 6, fifteen Carrefour convenience stores in Paris will be available via the Uber Eats app and website. Shoppers can order groceries as well as hygiene and cleaning products and have them delivered within 30 minutes. Delivery fees for Carrefour deliveries will be waived for the month of April, and the two companies plan to eventually roll the service out nationwide.

Techcrunch reports that Uber Eats is also expanding its grocery delivery operations in Spain through a partnership with Galp service stations. Delivery of food and other items will be available at 25 stores in fifteen cities across Badajoz, Barcelona, Cádiz, Córdoba, Madrid, Málaga, Palma de Mallorca and Valencia. Delivery can be ordered through the Uber Eats app or by phone for those without a smartphone or internet.

Techcrunch also writes that Uber Eats has partnered with Pague Menos pharmacies and Shell Select convenience stores to deliver food and other supplies in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

In this time of global pandemic and social distancing, delivery has become a lifeline for people stuck in their homes. Here in the U.S., The Information reported last week that Uber Eats has seen a surge in demand, with a ten percent week over week bump in sales and a 30 percent jump in the number of people signing up to deliver food.

Grocery delivery has been on the roadmap for Uber Eats for awhile. Uber CEO Dara Khosrowashahi talked up his interest in the grocery space back in October of 2018, and in October of last year Uber announced it was acquiring a majority stake in Cornershop, an online marketplace for on-demand delivery from supermarkets across Chile, Mexico, Peru and Toronto.

But with restaurants being forced to shut down because of the coronavirus outbreak, Uber’s moves into grocery are probably being accelerated. We can expect to see more of these types of delivery deals around the world as this pandemic continues to shake out.

Vivera’s Plant-Based Steaks Now Available in Belgian Supermarkets

The plant-based “bleeding” steak by Dutch company Vivera is now available in Belgian locations of supermarket Carrefour. The vegan product is meant to have the same look, taste, and texture as real steak.

Vivera’s vegan steaks first popped up on the shelves at 400 locations of British supermarket chain Tesco in May of this year. A press release from the company stated the company’s plans to launch in several locations in the Netherlands in June, followed by an expansion into Germany, France, and Italy.

A later release stated that Vivera’s steaks would reach multiple Netherlands locations on June 11, including the largest Dutch grocery chain, Albert Heijn, and the aforementioned Carrefour in Belgium. A statement by Carrefour, however, indicates that the goods didn’t actually arrive until June 19. This slight delay could be due to the high demand for Vivera’s vegan steaks: CCO Gert Jan Gombert told Plant-Based News that Tesco stores nearly sold out of the 40,000-strong initial shipment after just a few days.

Gombert wrote: “We apologize for the empty shelves, we just could not keep up with the high rotations (sometimes>100/per shop/week!). Better availability is on its way!” In response, Vivera is planning to increase their overall manufacturing output to 100,000 units per week. After some internet sleuthing, I could not find any evidence that Vivera is available in Dutch supermarkets yet.

From one angle, this is a good problem to have. The popularity of alterna-proteins is encouraging for health and environmental reasons. More and more people are becoming flexitarian and looking to substitute some of their meat products with vegetarian taste-alikes. Allied Research Market reported that the meat alternative market is projected to grow by 8.4% and reach $5.4 billion by 2020, and Mintel reports that over a quarter of Brits are trying to cut back on meat consumption. According to a press release from Carrefour, 95 percent of their customers are flexitarians, with 70 percent actively looking for meat substitutes.

Even so, it’s tough for plant-based meat companies to keep up with this growing demand. Just a few weeks ago, Beyond Meat had to quadruple their production because their vegan burgers were outselling meat patties in some California grocery stores. Vivera is planning to manufacture several million of their vegan steaks, but will it be enough?

If plant-based meat demand continues to rise (and I don’t see why it wouldn’t), more companies may have to make some major overhauls to their manufacturing and supply strategy to keep up.