Wednesday, February 2, 2022

Wakefern’s New Partnership Saves Consumers Time with Delight

 


Grocery stores consume to much of your time in the minds eye of the consumer.  The vast majority of consumer buy only 100 items form their local grocery store a year.  They simply buy them time and time again.  Walking through the store by passing 30,000+ other items is a ‘waste’ of time in their minds-eye.

Grocery retail have known this for the past 30+ years but are so tethered to an outdated Wall Street analyst metric, they simply do not care.  They you to spend all the time in the world in their store so you ‘increase the size’ of your grocery basket.

Steven Johnson, grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®, stated during a presentation that “Wakefern Food Corp., the largest retailer-owned cooperative in the U.S., is taking all of the right steps to improve its relationship with consumers by partnering with Trigo.  The partnership with Trigo will not only reduce operating cost by reducing labor, it will reduce theme it takes a consumer to get in and out of their stores.  Thus, adding reducing a consumer ‘pain-point’ while edifying relevance with technology.

In case you did not know, Trigo, is an Israel-based computer vision and frictionless checkout technology provider, to pilot an autonomous supermarket making use of Trigo’s AI-based frictionless checkout technology.


Wakefern, the logistics, distribution and merchandising arm for ShopRite stores, is comprised of nearly 50 member companies that independently own and operate close to 360 retail supermarkets under the ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Dearborn Market, Gourmet Garage and Fairway Market banners.

Charlie McWeeney, Wakefern’s VP of technology, innovation and strategy, stated, “With Trigo’s frictionless technology, Wakefern Food Corp. is opening up access to cutting-edge innovation for our members,” said, in a statement. “We are excited to pilot Trigo’s solution and offer our consumers the ultimate in checkout convenience.”

Starting off slow, with a trial pilot program, at an as-yet-to-be named Wakefern banner in New Jersey, represents Trigo’s U.S. debut.  Regular readers of this blog know of Trigo, as the company that launched its frictionless checkout technology with some of Europe’s leading grocers, including the U.K.’s Tesco as well as Germany’s Rewe, Aldi Nord and Netto, owned by The EDEKA Group.

“Trigo transforms existing supermarkets and grocers into fully autonomous, digital stores, combining their technology with Trigo computer vision to create a seamless shopping experience,” the company said. Applying Trigo’s GDPR compliant technology to various locations will allow retailers to scale their business while maintaining their unique character and layout, it adds.

At grocery stores featuring the Trigo technology, shoppers use an app to scan a QR code as they enter, and then are free to pick up items and leave without having to check out, in much the same way Amazon’s Just Walk Out technology functions in Amazon Fresh and Amazon Go locations.

Trigo co-founder and CEO Michael Gabay, stated, “Trigo is proud to work with some of the largest grocery retailers around the world, so partnering with Wakefern Food Corp., was a natural step for the company,” … “By helping Wakefern convert some store formats, or develop new ones that are exclusive to their brands, we can help them accelerate their growth within the market and pave the way for frictionless shopping in the future.”


Here is how it works; using AI and algorithmics experts, Trigo’s advanced retail automation platform identifies customers’ shopping items to create a seamless checkout process. Trigo works closely with retailers to convert their existing stores while maintaining their unique character and layout and leveraging their physical grocery scale to roll out next-generation offerings securely, says the company.

Powered by its proprietary 3D engine, Trigo offers grocery retailers a range of additional solutions called StoreOS, including predictive inventory management, pricing optimization, security and fraud prevention, planogram compliance, and event-driven marketing.

Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideas look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how our Grocerant Guru® can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participationdifferentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit: us on our social media sites by clicking one of the following links: Facebook,  LinkedIn, or Twitter



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