Schnuck Markets Inc. is expanding its use of Tally inventory-taking robots to all of its stores chainwide, which would include its lone Wisconsin location in Janesville.
The grocer began testing the artificial intelligence-powered robots, built by Simbe Robotics, at its Richmond Heights, Missouri, store in 2017. It was expanded to more than a dozen stores in 2018, and to more than half its stores in October.
Schnuck Markets said Thursday that a multiyear, full-scale rollout now will bring Tally robots to all 111 Schnucks stores. Officials said the expansion will make Schnucks the world's first grocer to use AI-powered inventory management chainwide.
Tally roams Schnucks store aisles, auditing inventory on shelves and alerting staff when items are low or out of stock, mispriced or misplaced. The robot operates alongside shoppers, scanning entire stores up to three times a day and autonomously returning to its dock.
Schnucks said Tally has enabled a 20% to 30% reduction in out-of-stock items, and increased price tag and promotional execution across tens of thousands of products daily. Officials said the robot's technology also has increased accuracy of information integrated into Schnucks' automated replenishment system and delivered access to real-time product location data through the Schnucks Rewards app.
By incorporating Tally's technology chainwide, Schnucks said it will get greater visibility into store conditions, as it prepares to adjust to quickly-changing post-pandemic business conditions.
“We are facing a ‘new normal’ in the grocery industry, and Tally has been instrumental to ensuring we continue to provide an exceptional store experience while rising to meet new operational challenges,” Dave Steck, Schnucks' vice president of IT infrastructure and application development, said in a statement. “By deploying Tally to all stores, we are fully operationalizing these insights into our supply chain and expanding our ability to leverage real-time data to make revenue impacting decisions. Tally has become an integral component of our stores, streamlining operations and ultimately creating a better store experience for our customers and teammates."
Steck also stated, “Many of our younger customers get very excited to see Tally going up and down the aisles of our stores and seek i tout when shopping with their parents."
Schnuck Markets is one of St. Louis' largest privately held companies with $2.9 billion in 2020 revenue. It operates 111 stores in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, employing 13,000, including nearly 10,000 in the St. Louis region.
