Robot Employees are the Latest Grocery Store Technology

On Foodable

2019 is proving to be an innovative year for the foodservice industry. Technological advances such as cashless stores and apps that help fill more restaurant seats with hungry diners aren’t the only latest trends. Some of the latest innovations we’ve seen at Foodable are introducing technological advances, like robots, to the grocery store space.Grocery chain Stop and Shop, is partnering with mobile market startup Robomart to bring a new method of grocery delivery to Boston this Spring. Instead of having customers order their groceries and deliver them to the door, customers will be able to order a remote-operated Robomart vehicle to their door via an app and pick out their own produce from a pre-stocked vehicle. The Robomart app utilizes a patent-pending RFID “check-out free” system, charging customers automatically for items. Another way technology is becoming more prevalent in the grocery store space is shown by Giant Food Stores.Recently, the chain introduced a robot named Marty to its 172 United States stores. Marty is built to roam around the store, looking for spills and trip hazards, which are reported to store employees. But that’s not all Marty can do, the robot can scan shelves for items that are out of stock, and perform price checks, looking for discrepancies between the shelf and the store’s scanning system.