Shufersal Launches Shop-and-go Grocery Store in Tel Aviv

After the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Britain, Israel has now joined the list of countries that have a checkout-free, grab-and-go, grocery store.

Trigo, an Israeli company, has developed the shopping technology that will be used for the store, which is to be established in Tel Aviv.

Automated supermarket

Shufersal, the largest supermarket chain in Israel, has been testing the Trigo’s technology for a number of years now.

Last Thursday, it announced that its first automated supermarket was now open for business in central Tel Aviv on Mendele Street.

It said that shoppers would be able to walk into the store, choose their items and then walk out without needing to stand in line for checkout, or deal with any self-checkout stands.

A digital system has been established for handling receipts and payments. Trigo has accomplished this with the help of its proprietary algorithms.

These are applied to the cameras that are mounted on the ceiling, which can track the movements of the shoppers automatically, along with the product choices they make, in real time.

The tech

The shopping tech that Trigo has developed is already in use in London at a Tesco grocery store, in Munich at a Netto City store and REWE shops in Cologne and Berlin.

Likewise, it is also use in Uretecht, the central Dutch city, at an Aldi Nord. Earlier, this year, the company had also moved into the US market.

A pilot scheme had been introduced in New Jersey at the Wakefern store. It should be noted that Wakefern Food Crop is known as the largest cooperative owned by retailers in the US.

As for Aldi Nord, REWE and Tesco, all of them are grocery companies well-known in Europe and the United Kingdom.

Aldi is a supermarket chain in Germany and one of its division is Aldi Nord. It is considered Europe’s largest grocery retailer and runs the Trader Joe’s markets in the United States.

The Shufersal store

Michael Gabay, the co-founder and chief executive of Trigo, said in a statement that the Shufersal store that has opened up in Tel Aviv is different.

The CEO said that this was because it has more goods stocked per square foot as compared to other stores powered by Trigo’s technology.

The store is spread across 1,080 square-foot and it offers a wide range of products that can help it in delivering an autonomous shopping experience to people that has not been seen in Israel earlier.

The CEO said that Shufersal had been the first company to have believed in their vision and had helped them in evolving their product.

Retail giants and supermarkets all across the globe are working to provide new experiences and conveniences to consumers amidst tough competition, supply chain issues and very thin margins.

Another problem is Amazon, which has also expanded into this space. There are 30 physical stores where it offers its ‘Go’ and ‘Just Walk Out’ experiences in the UK and the US.

This allows shoppers to walk in and out with what they want without having to go through the checkout process.