An army of robots ready to be deployed in the US food industry

During the pandemic, US stores and major food chains are deploying robots in their stores to clean floors, restock shelves and deliver food to consumers.

This increases efficiency and reduces pressure and the risk of contagion for workers. In Washington, Broad Branch Market is using driverless six-wheeled vehicles with sensors and AI for deliveries to residents in the immediate neighbourhood. “We’ve had them for just over a week and they’re proving very popular with customers,” said Tracy Stannard, one of the co-owners. During the crisis Broad Branch has closed its physical stores and concentrated only on deliveries and order pick-ups.

Brain Corp., which supplies floor cleaning robots to grocery stores, saw a 13% increase in sales in March compared to the same month last year.

By the end of 2020, Walmart (WMT) will use Brain Corp’s self-guided robots in 1,860 of its 4,700 US stores. It will also use robots for scanning shelf inventory at 1,000 stores, while “smart assistants” will be used in another 1,700 stores to scan packages when they are unloaded from trucks and place them on conveyor belts divided up by department.

Image via Pixabay