Grocery stores of tomorrow

Future trends that could dramatically change your shopping experience.

Story by David DiCenzo  •  Illustration by Luc Latulippe

The checkout lines are packed. It's a scene played out at hundreds of similar-sized supermarkets across the country every day but for independent-minded consumers like Anna Shoveller, there is some relief. After a few spins around the massive store, she bypasses the jam-packed lines and goes directly to the self-scanning area. Ironically, Shoveller has actual experience, having worked as a checkout girl throughout high school and university but this new, emerging service available in Canadian grocery chains is designed for the uninitiated. The process is simple: Shoveller scans the bar codes on most of the products, while using the easy-to-navigate computer screen to search for fresh produce that needs to be weighed on the scale in front of her. She quickly fills the carousel of open plastic shopping bags with her items and then proceeds to swipe her credit card for payment.

"I like the self-scanning service," the 31-year-old says. "I seem to pay a little more attention to what the items cost. And if you have any problems, there's a staff person from the store to help."

Self-scan checkout areas are a new application of an existing technology and have been spreading quickly through stores in Europe and North America. It's an indication of the many transformations that grocery stores have been undergoing, changes precipitated by consumer desires. Anything that provides convenience, added value or shaves a few minutes off of your time is a welcome improvement. And if you can get virtually everything you need in one place, then it's all the better. The notion of the hypermarket - a large retail complex that is a combination of a grocery store and department store - was first introduced in Europe in the 1970s. Today, on North American soil, warehouse clubs and department stores continue to take a chunk out of the grocery retail market by adding food to their inventory, so the industry has hit back by offering more at the grocery store.

"The changes in consumers are going to really change the way Canadian grocery stores look, feel and operate," says Justin Sherwood, vice-president of the western region for the Canadian Council of Grocery Distributors (CCGD). "We're time-starved. The pressures and deadlines of life mean that you don't want to make five or six different trips to shop."

Because of this, the grocery store is no longer just a place to get food. Financial services, pharmacies, optical services, bed and bath, electronics and photo shops are typical additions found in many stores, allowing the consumer to streamline the time spent running errands. For example, the number of stores in Canada with pharmacy services has risen from a couple of hundred 10 years ago to approximately 1,500 in 2006. Gyms located in or next to a grocery store are another growth area, particularly in the United States.

"If you think about it, you can hit the gym, go to the market, drop off your dry cleaning and then take a trip to the wine kiosk," says Sherwood. "That's convenient."

This overwhelming need to save time not only drives the services and merchandise available at grocery outlets, but has also had an enormous impact on the type of food products offered. Sherwood points out that in the 1930s, housewives spent an average of two and a half hours preparing meals, whereas these days the household chef has whittled that down to an astounding 15 minutes. Ready-made foods used to be limited to grabbing a barbecued chicken from a roaster adjacent to the deli counter. Today, this area has exploded with prepared salads, olive and appetizer bars, pre-cooked roasts, frozen gourmet pizzas and trays of lasagnas, and a wealth of affordable ethnic foods being a few examples of what the consumer can choose to take home to enjoy as part of a quick, considerably less laborious dinner. "We've gone from preparing meals from scratch to meal assembly," says Sherwood.

At the same time, the consumer is becoming more conscious of what's available and where it comes from. Grocery stores are sourcing more local products in response to the demands of shoppers. Better health is also an increasing area of interest. The CCGD states that 95% of Canadians rate nutrition as a somewhat or very important factor in choosing what products they purchase. It's not surprising given that 1.1 million adults in the country went from being overweight to obese in the years from 1996/97 to 2002/03 according to Statistics Canada. These trends have led to the production of both smaller portions and more nutritional foods, and has also led to the proliferation of organic produce in many stores.

Seniors and our aging population are on the radar of retailers as well. Elderly people present a definite opportunity for retailers but getting their dollars requires that they meet the needs of this consumer group. Discounts, larger more visible signage and smaller product portions are some of the demands from seniors.

"Demographics drive a lot of the things in the business," says Sherwood. "As the population ages, we become more concerned with what we're eating." This fact certainly drives growth and Sherwood emphasizes that by referring to the "explosion" of light and calorie-reduced products available in recent years. But that's not to say the sweet tooth is a dying breed.

"Today's consumer wants it all," Sherwood explains. "They want the healthy and they want the indulgence. People still love their Oreos."

How we shop has changed considerably over the past few decades. The local corner grocery stores have given way to huge supermarkets supplying anything you can imagine. These monster locations have a heavy reliance on technology and will continue to do so as more trends emerge. Fingerprint payment, edible tattoos for fruit, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) and "smart" shopping carts are some of the technologies that could be a part of the grocery store of the future.

Durand Wayland is a Georgia-based produce packer that has begun to use Natural Light Labelling for fruit instead of traditional stickers, which always seem like a pain to remove. A concentrated beam of light removes the pigment from the skin of the fruit or vegetable, revealing a contrasting colour. Anything can be etched into the skin, from logos to batch numbers, without compromising the quality or integrity of the produce.

In 2002, American chain ThriftWay introduced a Pay By Touch system to a store in Seattle, Washington. Customers register their credit cards with the store and are then able to access their accounts in the checkout process by touching a computer screen, which identifies the individual's fingerprint. The scanned groceries are immediately charged to their credit card, eliminating the need for shoppers to have their wallets handy. Despite the Big Brother perception of such technology, ThiftWay shoppers took to the new system, which now processes thousands of similar transactions a month.

Last year, Japanese manufacturer Fujitsu introduced the U-Scan Shopper unit. The intelligent computer display screen attached to a cart allows a shopper to download their grocery list, while navigating them to the desired aisles by using strategically placed infrared triggers around the store. It can also offer you some tasty recipes and point out custom-tailored promotions that may be of interest to that specific shopper. But at $1,200 per unit, they might not be part of the norm any time soon.

That means you'll have to put up with the standard carts, but beware, they are apparently a haven for germs - even though many retailer regularly clean their carts. A study at the University of Arizona found that in some cases, carts can be more contaminated with bacteria than public washrooms. The response from retailers? Sterilization wipes. Some stores in the Arizona-based Bashas' chain offer them so a customer can wipe down the cart before hitting the aisles.

The term Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) will likely become a more familiar one to consumers. These tiny computer chips are embedded into products and have many applications - from managing inventory and tracking products to providing consumers with detailed information about grocery items. One of the immediate benefits is that it would allow retailers to reduce the number of out-of-stock items on store shelves. There is no such existing technology in Canada, though it is being tested in European markets and in Texas at Wal-Mart stores.

"It's a technology that is growing and is looking to do a number of different things," says David Wilkes, CCGD's senior vice-president. "It's about having the right products at the right store at the right time." Be it RFIDs, fingerprint scanning or the use of a smart cart, the way the Canadian grocery store of the future will look depends on one thing - what the consumer wants.