It’s just a small town in Germany but it boasts what the owners claim is the most modern supermarket in the world — a test bed of global retail technology.
From the outside Metro’s Future store in Rheinberg — population 30,000 — looks like thousands of others: a barn in a car park. Yet inside it bristles with state-of-the-art technology.
Want to know what a wine tastes like, what meat or fish goes best with it? Just pick up a bottle and run the bar code through the scanner at one of the information points and up come the answers on screen. They will even deliver appropriate recipes so you can plan a dinner party as you walk the isles. Do not bother trying to write it all down on the back of your shopping list; press a button and you get an instant print out.
The weighing scales are smarter than the average, too. Stick on the fruit or veg and a digital camera scans it, identifies it, prices it and labels it. Mind you, while it is hot stuff on tomatoes it’s a bit flaky on a bunch of bananas: offering a choice between bananas, peas, salad and apples.
Even the shopping trolleys are hi-tech. Though they are not called shopping trolleys but personal shopping assistants. They come equipped with a touch screen which provides a store guide, a bar scanner, and a search function and you can even pre-programme your shopping list online and then send someone else to do the boring bit of going round the aisles.
You can check-out through special terminals without going near a cashier, and the management can change all the prices through a wireless local area network. The store is so hi-tech that when it opened no one was sure how customers would react.
Around 40 companies are involved in the Future Metro at Rheinberg, which stands close to the heart of the Ruhr and has attracted 10 000 visitors. One of the key technologies being used at the future store is RFID, radio frequency identification, where Metro is working alongside SAP, the German software company. Proponents argue that RFID will mean bar coding will pass beyond its sell-by date.
RFID uses a tiny chip with a transmitter to send out radio signals, used to track the goods to which it is attached. The system is already used to track pallets and packets along the distribution chain.
One snag is cost. Using RFID on individual products means that keeping track of stock and its freshness is a breeze. Placing a chip on every single item in the store, even if it costs only a few pence, can put a hefty dent in margins.
Gillette already fits RFID chips to its top of the range razorblades, a shoplifters’ favourite. Cream cheese is similarly tagged to keep a check on sell-by dates. But even enthusiasts believe it will be a while before bar coding goes. – Guardian Unlimited Â