Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits deploys Corvus Robotics drone inventory system in USA

Corvus Robotics and Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits have announced a technology partnership and expanded deployment of the Corvus One autonomous inventory management system across Southern Glazer’s distribution network.

Over the past 18 months, it has deployed more than 40 Corvus One autonomous drones across nine distribution centres in the US, with expansion planned.

Corvus One operates within warehouse environments, autonomously flying aisles to scan and validate reserve storage locations without disrupting case picking operations. According to Corvus Robotics, the result is hands free, high frequency inventory audits that sync directly with Southern Glazer’s WMS, freeing the team to focus on higher value tasks. The system has completed approximately 5,000 flights and identified over 35,000 verified discrepancies across deployed facilities.

“Across our network, inventory accuracy directly impacts how effectively we serve our customers,” says Karli Sage, Vice President, Supply Chain Management, Technology & Engineering, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits.

“By increasing the frequency and precision of our reserve inventory validation, we are identifying issues earlier, improving fill rates, and enabling our teams to focus on proactive problem solving instead of reactive counting. The speed at which we have scaled this technology across nine sites reflects the value it is delivering to our operations.”

“Southern Glazer’s operates at a scale where small improvements in accuracy have meaningful downstream impact,” says Jackie Wu, CEO at Corvus Robotics. “Their team has embraced autonomous inventory as core infrastructure within their supply chain transformation initiative. Scaling to nine facilities with more than 40 drones demonstrates strong operational buy-in and sets a new benchmark for how beverage distributors can modernise inventory control without slowing the floor.”

2026 RTIH Innovation Awards

Supply chain technology will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.

The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.

Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.

Check out our 2025 winners here.

Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.

In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”

“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”

He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”

Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.