Grocery Roundup: Aldi Drops Deliveroo; Walmart Opens eCommerce Fulfillment Center

Deliveroo may be going all-in on grocery, but grocers are not necessarily going all-in on Deliveroo. Essen, Germany-based international discount grocery chain Aldi pulled its 130 United Kingdom stores on the platform from Deliveroo’s marketplace Wednesday (Jan. 19), terminating its deal with the delivery service, British grocery news outlet The Grocer reported.

“We have decided to end our trial with Deliveroo to focus on our Click and Collect service, which remains on offer at more than 200 of our stores nationwide,” an Aldi spokesperson told the publication.

The news came right before Deliveroo touted its strong fourth-quarter 2021 results Thursday (Jan. 20), placing an emphasis on the strength of its grocery delivery business.

Aldi’s decision comes either in spite of widespread eGrocery adoption in the U.K. or perhaps because of it. The greater a portion of sales come in through digital channels, the more important it is to own those transactions, capturing consumer data, controlling the customer experience, and retaining a greater portion of the profits.

Research from PYMNTS’ study “What U.K. Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences,” created in collaboration with ACI Worldwide, found that more than twice as many Brits typically buy groceries online as Americans, with 32.3% of the former and 15.3% of the latter taking advantage of digital options.

Moreover, the survey revealed that 25.8% of Brits report buying online and having the products delivered to their homes, compared to only 4.4% of Americans who say the same, meaning that Brits are about six times as likely to order eGrocery delivery.

Get the study: What U.K. Consumers Expect From Their Grocery Shopping Experiences

Walmart to Open 1M-Square-Foot Fulfillment Center to Meet eCommerce Demand

As demand for online grocery continues to rise, grocers are challenged to find ways to fulfill these orders without disrupting the flow of in-store operations.

Walmart, like other leaders in the space, is tackling the issue by opening new designated eCommerce fulfillment centers. The world’s largest grocer announced Thursday that it is opening a fulfillment center in Olive Branch, Mississippi, in the spring, one that will be more than 1 million square feet large.

“The new facility will store millions of items from Walmart’s everyday low-priced merchandise, which will be ready to be shipped directly to customers with the great speed that they expect,” Steve Miller, senior vice president of Supply Chain Operations at Walmart U.S, said in a statement.

In its most recently reported quarter, the 13-week period ended Oct. 29, the chain saw eCommerce orders rise 87% on a two-year stack. Additionally, grocery sales rose nearly 10% year over year.

Checkout AI Company Supersmart Brings in $10M in Latest Funding Round

Supersmart, an Israeli technology company that creates artificial intelligence (AI) checkout technology for supermarkets, raised $10 million in its latest funding round, led by a $5 million investment from Tel Aviv-based venture capital firm Millenium Food-Tech, the Jerusalem Post reported Sunday (Jan. 16).

“The belief shown in us by Millennium Food-Tech, as well as existing investors and the world’s leading marketing chains, establishes Supersmart as a leading solution, which upgrades the customer experience in an easily applied way, and through which checkout lines will become a thing of the past,” Supersmart Chief Financial Officer Ofer Ilan told the publication.

The technology mimics that of an Amazon “Just Walk Out”-style store, charging consumers automatically as they exit. However, unlike Amazon’s version, which registers items as consumers move through the aisles of the store, Supersmart’s version has consumers pass through a scanning unit on their way out.

Solutions that remove the waiting time from grocery checkout and allow consumers to take control of their shopping journeys are highly in demand. For instance, research from “Today’s Self-Service Shopping Journey: The New Retail Expectation,” a PYMNTS and Toshiba collaboration, found that 33% of grocery shoppers who use traditional, manned checkout do so because it is the only option available. Additionally, 68% of grocery shoppers who use self-service are motivated by a desire to get out the door faster.

Stop & Shop Monetizes Would-Be Waste With Digital Marketplace

Ahold Delhaize-owned supermarket chain Stop & Shop announced an eCommerce move Thursday that allows the grocer to bring in revenue from products that would otherwise be thrown away while attracting sustainability-minded shoppers.

The chain announced that it is expanding its partnership with Flashfood, a marketplace app selling discounted foods that are getting close to their best-by dates, to five stores in Rhode Island following an initial pilot test at four locations in Worcester, Massachusetts.

The model is similar to the one used by quickly expanding Copenhagen-based eCommerce company Too Good To Go whose marketplace app sells discounted surprise bags from restaurants and stores of food they would have otherwise thrown away. Given the company’s rapid growth, the model seems to be a sound one.

“It’s building that win-win-win concept where the stores have a single solution to not throw away food anymore, where each of us can actually do something for fighting food waste and get great products at a third of the price,” Too Good To Go Co-Founder and Chief Expansion Officer Lucie Basch told PYMNTS in an interview.

Read more: Anti-Food Waste Platform Too Good to Go Offers ‘Win-Win-Win’ for Businesses and Consumers