The five biggest retail technology news stories of the week
The weekend is almost upon us, so let’s kick back and reflect on another eventful week for the retail systems space. Here's your briefing on the biggest stories from the past few days, including Ocado Group and Alcampo, Instacart, Carrefour and Casino Group.
1. Sainsbury’s taps green retail tech for delivery fleet first
Sainsbury’s says that it is the first UK retailer to introduce fully electric refrigerated trailers to its delivery fleet.
New technology adds charge back into the battery by converting kinetic energy into electricity, keeping the onboard fridges cool and reducing energy consumption.
This is part of Sainsbury’s plans to invest £1 billion, over the next 20 years, into its operations, with the aim of eliminating carbon emissions and significantly reducing energy costs.
2. Ocado Group inks online deal with Spanish retailer Alcampo
Ocado Solutions has teamed with Auchan Retail owned Spanish grocer Alcampo to develop the latter’s online business using the Ocado Smart Platform (OSP).
The pair will initially build a customer fulfilment centre (CFC) to serve the Madrid region from 2024, with additional CFCs to be announced at future dates.
Alcampo will also leverage Ocado’s In-Store Fulfilment (ISF) software across its hypermarkets nationwide to enable more efficient picking from stores.
3. Instacart raids Facebook as Fidji Simo becomes its new CEO
Fidji Simo, a ten-year Facebook veteran, is joining online grocery venture Instacart as CEO.
She says she “fell in love with Instacart first as a customer, then as a board member, and now I’m honoured to join the company as CEO and lead its next growth chapter.”
“I believe that with Fidji at the helm we’ll be in an even stronger position to seize the incredible opportunity in front of us,” adds Instacart Founder and current CEO Apoorva Mehta, who will move into a new role as Executive Chairman of the board.
4. Casino Group pens tech deal with Accenture and Google Cloud
Casino Group has announced a digital strategy acceleration partnership with Accenture and Google Cloud.
The aim here is to enhance the retailer’s customer experience and operational capabilities through the development and implementation of data analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning based solutions.
It is also looking to support the growth of its B2B activities, in particular RelevanC, the Group's retail media property, with technological and commercial back up from the partners.
5. Carrefour announces Fortnite and Pickup partnerships
Carrefour has launched a Healthy Map on Fortnite, enabling players to heal themselves and gain more energy by eating fruit, vegetables and fish.
This places them in an eco-friendly Carrefour store of the future: a supermarket with an electric recharging station, trucks running on biomethane, a responsible fishing zone, fields of organic fruit and fresh vegetables, and a farm respecting animal welfare.
Meanwhile, under its partnership with Pickup, a subsidiary of La Poste group, Carrefour has announced that more than 400 automatic parcel lockers are to be rolled out across France.
Customers will find these, starting in September, in three Carrefour store formats (hypermarkets, Market stores and convenience stores).
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