Pizza delivery by air, anyone?: bringing you last week’s biggest retail technology plays at a glance
Heron Foods
British supermarket chain, Heron Foods, says it has improved customer experience (CX), streamlined operations and enhanced colleague safety with an in-store communication platform from x-hoppers.
Established in Hull in 1979, Heron Foods focuses on delivering chilled, frozen and branded grocery goods at affordable prices and operates over 340 UK stores. With 6,000 staff across its network and a growing store estate – aiming to open up to 30 new locations each year – it wanted to unify its communications and better connect its teams across frontline roles, the back office, regional field reps and its HQ.
Having selected x-hoppers, which combines wireless headsets with a mobile app, Heron Foods says it has improved in-store experiences for shoppers while helping staff feel safer on the shop floor.
The solution now connects area and regional managers with frontline store teams via the mobile app. This ensures the right messages reach the right teams at the right times to drive operational efficiencies and enhanced productivity. It also embeds intelligence directly into staff members’ daily workflows, improving speed of service for shoppers, while smart notifications create greater consistency and compliance.
This integrates with Heron Foods’ existing systems, including StaffSafe, an always on security solution offering real-time, two-way verbal and visual connectivity to prevent, control and remedy in-store incidents.
Mountain Warehouse
Commerce reports that Mountain Warehouse, a global outdoor clothing and equipment retailer, has launched a new composable e-commerce platform powered by BigCommerce.
This replaces a decade old custom built system. Founded in 1997, Mountain Warehouse operates more than 400 stores worldwide and serves over five million customers across key markets including the UK, US, Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. The company designs and produces the majority of its products in-house, with the aim of offering affordable outdoor apparel and equipment for the whole family.
“Moving away from our legacy platform was critical to unlocking the next phase of Mountain Warehouse’s growth,” says Simon Neale, Chief Technology Officer at Mountain Warehouse. “With BigCommerce, we now have the flexibility to innovate faster, integrate best-of-breed technologies and focus our engineering efforts on delivering better customer experiences rather than maintaining core infrastructure.”
Sobeys
Pricer reports that its partner JRTech Solutions has signed an agreement with Canadian grocery retailer Sobeys. The contract includes the deployment of Pricer’s latest electronic shelf label (ESL) technology and the cloud-based platform Plaza across an estimated 300–350 stores.
The agreement covers the supply of multi-colour electronic shelf labels and the necessary store infrastructure, with a total hardware and infrastructure value of approximately $51 million (excluding Pricer Plaza). The deployment is scheduled for an 18-month period starting in May.
“We are very grateful for the trust and that Sobeys has once again chosen Pricer as its long-term strategic partner,” says Mats Arnehall, Chief Growth Officer at Pricer. “This deal confirms our leading position in the North American market and the value of our high performance system in high density retail environments. Our scalable cloud platform, Plaza, will be the intelligence behind every label, enabling Sobeys to act faster and work smarter.”
“After years of close collaboration and shared success, we’re proud to grow our partnership with Sobeys even further with an expanded rollout,” says Diego Mazzone, President and CEO at JRTech Solutions.
The Home Depot
The Home Depot has acquired SIMPL Automation, a two year old US-based startup focused on automation and technology systems. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
SIMPL uses engineering and AI technology with the aim of helping distribution facilities operate faster and more efficiently. The Home Depot says that the technology furthers its strategy of same-day/next-day fulfillment while also improving safety and increasing speed.
The acquisition follows a pilot at The Home Depot’s Locust Grove, Ga. distribution centre, where it drove faster pick speed, faster cycle times and less product touches. It also has a patented storage and retrieval solution that helps maximise storage density, allowing the home improvement retailer to house a broader assortment of high demand products closer to the customer.
“We’re focused on providing the best interconnected experience in home improvement by having products in stock and ready to deliver to our customers whether it’s to the home or jobsite,” says Amit Kalra, Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at The Home Depot. “By bringing SIMPL’s industry leading automation into our operations, we’re accelerating the flow of products through our distribution network to deliver with unprecedented speed and precision.”
Starbucks
Starbucks has launched a beta app in ChatGPT, the aim of which is to help customers discover drinks in a way that feels natural, personal, and fun.
People can describe their mood or share a photo that captures their vibe and the app will translate that into personalised drink suggestions. They can customise the drink, choose the coffeehouse they’d like to order from, start their order in ChatGPT and finish checkout in the Starbucks app or on Starbucks.com.
“It’s such a fun, smart way to find and order your next drink,” says Tressie Lieberman, Global Chief Brand Officer at Starbucks. “From big moves like reshaping Starbucks Rewards to sweating the customer experience in the app (and now AI) every single day, our digital team is curious, dreaming big, and always learning.”
In an online post, Starbucks says: “The beta app in ChatGPT is part of our ongoing effort to make drink discovery at Starbucks a personal experience. We’ve enhanced discovery in the app with a trending beverage category and a secret menu, harnessing the power of customisation that occurs every day in social media and with our baristas. And now, in ChatGPT, we are using AI to support something very human: helping you discover a drink you’ll love.”
Forever Cheese
Forever Cheese has selected RELEX to replace spreadsheet driven forecasting and replenishment across its distribution network. The project will support its three distribution centres (DCs) and more than 1,000 SKUs, supporting freshness and service levels, with a planning foundation designed to scale with the business.
Founded with a focus on sourcing and distributing products from around the world, Forever Cheese sources primarily from Italy Spain, and Asia, with expanding supply from the US, Switzerland, Portugal, and Croatia. The company operates a complex supply chain, spanning multiple business units, including Forever Cheese, WA Imports, and Virginia Packing, that combines national distribution with light manufacturing and packaging operations.
Effectively managing long international lead times, expiration driven inventory, and increasing intercompany logistics required a planning approach that can connect demand, inventory, and replenishment decisions across the business as it continues to scale.
With forecasting and replenishment capabilities from RELEX, Forever Cheese says it will gain a centralised view of demand, inventory, and replenishment across its DCs and channels. RELEX will support expiration aware planning to help manage perishable inventory, while enabling exception-based workflows that automate routine planning decisions and focus attention on the exceptions that matter most.
The company plans to leverage the technology to support supply chain optimisation for future acquisitions.
