Robots have swept across the grocery industry. They’re checking shelf stocks at Schnucks stores, scrubbing floors at Walmart Supercenters and moving pallets of products from one place to another in distribution sites across the country. At points across the supply chain, automation is helping retailers chip away at operational costs in a notoriously low-margin industry. But the technology’s greatest challenge arguably lies ahead: pushing American shoppers to buy more of their cereal, fruit, milk and bread online. By using robots to pick and pack online orders, and by probing new frontiers such as driverless delivery,supermarket chains are betting the lower prices and faster fulfillment that result will accelerate demand for online shopping and create meaningful opportunities to take market share from their competitors. But in an industry where most consumers have a hard time getting excited about buying packaged groceries, much less prepared meals and produce online, will hordes of pricey robots really help turn the tide?
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