Ahold Delhaize, the parent company of Giant Food, announced that it is piloting a small-format store concept at its office in Quincy, MA called “lunchbox” that uses friction-less checkout technology. Similar to Amazon Go stores, lunchbox enables customers to make cashier-less purchases by scanning in as they enter, selecting items and then walking out.
According to the company, a proprietary app admits shoppers into the store and charges them for purchases. The app integrates services like PayPal, Venmo, Apple Pay and Google Pay. Products removed from the store’s shelves are detected by artificial intelligence, and anonymous body skeletal tracking connects the products taken to the shopper who removed them from the shelf.
Plans call for a lunchbox store to be tested at another Ahold Delhaize office next year, and a rollout strategy is being discussed.
Recently the company opened an Ah To Go store at its corporate headquarters in The Netherlands. The 150-square foot cashier-less store uses “grab and go” technology from Santa Clara, CA-based AiFi, which created the NanoStore, an auto-checkout, portable convenience store.
Ahold Delhaize USA is also planning to expand its SCAN IT! Mobile platform to about 30 stores by the end of the year. With SCAN IT! Mobile, customers can scan product barcodes with their smartphone as they shop, and the app keeps a running tally of the groceries scanned. Customers leave the store through a designated checkout lane, where they see a “payment approved” message as they walk through. The app is currently offered at select Shop & Stop and Giant Heirloom Market locations.