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Not feeling like putting away your home-delivered groceries? Then Carrefour will put them in the fridge for you. The French supermarket chain is testing this new service with a panel of customers.
Straight into the freezer
From now on, Carrefour does not only deliver to your home, but actually into your home. The supermarket chain is currently testing this new service with a limited number of customers in France. Those who order via the Carrefour webshop can opt for delivery directly to the fridge as part of a pilot project. To do so, customers simply install a smart lock from Assa Abloy, Carrefour’s partner in the project.
The delivery driver can unlock the lock – during the pre-announced delivery time slot – and thus gain access to the customer’s home. In this way, the deliverer can immediately put the fresh products in the refrigerator and the frozen products in the freezer. The dry goods are placed in a central location in the kitchen, for example on the table. Before leaving, the delivery person sends a picture of the stored groceries to the customer. Customers are also informed when the driver enter and leaves.
30 million American households
Carrefour is the first to introduce the fridge delivery service to the French market, but in the United States the system has been around for some time. Amazon has developed its own smart lock, allowing delivery drivers to deliver packages even indoors, and is hoping for a breakthrough with smart fridges. Using cameras and sensors, the fridge can recognise depleted products on its own, re-order them autonomously and thus tell the couriers where the new supply should be placed.
Its rival Walmart has been offering its InHome service since 2019. According to LSA, this service is now available to thirty million households, mainly in large US cities. Walmart plans to hire an additional 3,000 employees to support the expansion of the service. Elsewhere, Albert Heijn also launched a pilot project in 2018, following the example of the Swedish chain ICA.
