supermarket
SMGN Health Department
Check Out in the Aisle Vamps Shopping Cart Health Calculators
10/11/2007
Reuters reported today that supermarket shoppers "may soon be cruising the aisles with 'intelligent' shopping carts that warn them if they're buying too much junk food." The news is out.
U.S. technology services company, EDS, outlined the concept in a study paper published this week. The new carts will read each product's individual code to give customers information about calories, nutrition, ethical sourcing and the environment.
Guarded optimitism seems warranted. One blogger, Nilay Pate said, "At this point we've seen so many variations on the "smart shopping cart" concept bubble up and fail we're pretty jaded, but the latest version, from Electronic Data Systems, seems like it almost maybe has a chance."
SMGN believes that so long as you're swiping items as you place them in your cart you may as well be adding up your total as you add up your calories and nutrients.
EDS claims the screens would reduce the need for lots of packaging for food, helping stores to tackle environmental concerns. SMGN thinks you'd better add honker horns to your trollies to wake up shoppers mesmerized by their computer screens in the aisle.
"Shoppers want barcode readers on their trolleys (shopping carts) to calculate the nutritional content and tell them when they have blown their calorific budget," said EDS's Sion Roberts, director of consumer industries and retail. Adding ...
"It's high-time that the humble barcode is recognized as a practical and cost-effective solution to consumers' thirst for information."
On behalf of EDS, international food and grocery expert IGD conducted a study of grocery consumers with the following results.
- 95% of people want nutritional information
- 93% want ethical information
- 92% look for environmental information
- 22% of people want information on country of origin of fresh products (fruit, vegetables and meat). A similar number
- 21% want information about locally and regionally sourced produce
- 19% of people requested information on whether their products were free range
- 15% of people wanted to see a Fairtrade logo on the fruit and vegetables that they buy
- 78% of people say they prefer to get information from on-pack labelling.
- 46% of shoppers want retailers to cut back on unnecessary packaging.
Despite this thirst for knowledge, most prefer to get information from labels on the food, according to the survey of nearly 1,000 people.
Progressive grocers should be aware. Shoppers are already using advanced carts. Trials of touch-screen computers on shopping carts have been trialed in stores in the U.S. Smart carts are on their way.