[In the picture] Robots boost e-commerce capacity at Colruyt Group

At Collect&Go, the Colruyt Group’s grocery delivery service, 134 robots provide additional capacity. They help prepare orders up to five times faster at one of Belgium’s most advanced e-commerce distribution centers for food products.

Meeting growing demand

At the Collect&Go distribution center in Londerzeel, robots automatically retrieve products from the shelves and deliver them to employees, who then check the groceries and place them in foldable boxes. Colruyt Group is investing 19 million euros in Belgium’s largest Exotec installation, a technology used worldwide by leading e-commerce players. The automated storage system features 40,000 shelf locations and will soon be home to up to 200 robots.

The system, which went live in the spring, already processes more than 80% of the total Colruyt and Bio-Planet product range. This gives Collect&Go the capacity to meet the growing customer demand for online grocery shopping. Today, 1 in 2 Belgians uses an online grocery service, and online grocery shopping is expected to continue growing in importance. Colruyt Group no longer views online grocery shopping as a supplementary service, but as a full-fledged and integral part of how Belgians do their grocery shopping.

Doubling capacity

This automation is expected to double capacity in Londerzeel over the next five years: today, the distribution center processes Collect&Go orders for 50 pickup locations and for home delivery, and 15 pickup locations will now be added each year. In addition, Colruyt Group also processes online orders prepared in Colruyt stores and at a distribution center in Erpe-Mere.

“With this automation, we’re already building the capacity, quality, and speed we’ll need tomorrow to make online grocery shopping at the lowest prices even easier for even more customers,” says Stefan Goethaert, CEO of Colruyt Group. “The technology makes the work of our colleagues at the distribution center more ergonomic and efficient. By automating repetitive tasks, we free up time for tasks where human expertise and attention make a difference, such as additional quality checks and the efficient packing of goods into folding boxes. In this way, people and machines work hand in hand.”