The Robot Grocery Wars Heat Up
- By CDOTrends editors
- May 02, 2024
Leading Australian grocery group Coles is set to roll out its army of factory robots after the project was delayed due to cost blowouts.
Coles is working with British retail technology provider Ocado to build two robotic facilities for home deliveries of fresh produce in New South Wales and Queensland.
Construction delays delayed the project last year, with costs blowing out by AUD120 million.
The project's overall cost has been reported as AUD 400 million or AUD 1 billion.
This month, the robotic warehouses will progressively come online in a process expected to take around 12 months to reach full capacity.
Coles is expecting the robotic warehouses to bring down distribution costs and help it lower prices at a time when the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission is investigating the company’s pricing practices.
The project has two parts. The first is called Project Witron and comprises the construction of the warehouses, where automation will be used to load and unload delivery trucks.
The second part of the project is the customer fulfillment centers, where up to 1,000 robot workers will be operating 24/7 to fill orders as they arrive.
Coles reportedly conducted a test run at the Queensland site over Christmas, and the robots could handle a record number of cartons at volumes much larger than anywhere else in the current Coles network.
Coles's online channel currently comprises around 10% of total sales and is growing rapidly, increasing by more than 30% in the March quarter to AUD856 million.
Implementing the robots will give Coles a competitive edge against rival Woolworths, but the move has also been triggered by the entry of U.S. giant Amazon into the Australian market.
In August last year, Amazon announced it would construct a robotic warehouse in Melbourne, which would be the largest facility of its kind in Australia.
Image credit: iStockphoto/charles taylor