The Friday Checkout is a weekly column providing more insight on the news, rounding up the announcements you may have missed and sharing what’s to come.
Who needs a pricey smart cart when you can put a tracking device on traditional shopping baskets and carts? That’s exactly what Albertsons is doing in an 80-store pilot that monitors where customers go in stores. It wants to see how long customers stop in front of in-store retail media displays.
Liz Roche, vice president of media and measurement at Albertsons, shared details about the pilot in a January episode of The Middlemen Podcast. Albertsons is a couple of months into the pilot and plans to expand the test to about 800 stores this year, Roche said, noting that the initiative is driven by brands’ desire to collect more data, find ways for more incremental purchases and pinpoint cross-merchandising opportunities.
“Our carts use beacon technology to anonymously detect when carts are in proximity to in‑store displays,” an Albertsons Media Collective spokesperson wrote in an email. “This helps us understand overall engagement patterns and dwell time within different areas of the store. All sensor data is aggregated and not tied to an individual, no personal or device‑level identifiers are collected.”
Albertsons, which launched a digital display network in 2025, told BoiseDev that the cart tracking initiative is not connected to the grocer’s loyalty program data.
“Dwell time likely equates to an incremental sale, but we actually need to test those models,” Roche said on the podcast.
The pilot is a reminder that there’s a discrepancy between how much data grocers can get from in-store vs. online shopping. Albertsons, which has carved out a reputation for being on the frontier of retail media in grocery, understands that collecting richer in-store shopping data could help differentiate it as more and more retailers chase retail media dollars.
While one of the main benefits of smart carts is tracking a shopper’s in-store route, Albertsons may show that valuable shopping data can be collected through a tracker that customers don’t even have to think about.
In case you missed it
Hy-Vee introduces medically tailored meals
The Midwest grocer has developed Dietitian Dishes, a line of frozen meals aimed at supporting people with diabetes, those looking for heart-friendly options and more. The tailored selections come in more than 15 varieties and include flavors like braised beef, Mediterranean chicken and spicy chicken enchiladas. The selections are available in stores’ frozen sections and can be prepared in five minutes or less.
Hy-Vee, which is well-known in the industry as a health innovator, said it’s one of the first grocers in the U.S. to develop a proprietary line of medically tailored meals.
Whole Foods Market continues to expand in the Northeast
Amazon may have shut down its Fresh and Go stores, but it’s steaming ahead with the expansion of Whole Foods. The specialty grocer plans to open a 43,000-square-foot store in Holbrook, New York, on March 5, and a small-format Daily Shop store in Brooklyn, New York’s Williamsburg neighborhood on Feb. 25.
Whole Foods has so far this year opened or announced four new stores. In addition to the two New York locations, the grocer opened a store in Cheshire, Connecticut, on Thursday and plans to open a store in Rogersville, Arkansas, on Feb. 18.
Grocery Outlet launched its first-ever livestream — and hit a snag
Just days before the Super Bowl, discount grocer Grocery Outlet was set to launch its first-ever livestream shopping event. However, viewers who tuned in on Wednesday found the grocer experiencing some technical difficulties, causing it to reschedule the event to Friday afternoon, according to its website.
The livestream will spotlight snacks, desserts, beverages and other gameday essentials. Viewers will be able to browse and purchase featured products through Instacart.
Impulse find
Publix worker bags $10K for for being the nation's fastest grocery packer
Grocery store employees across the U.S. strive to pack customers’ orders quickly and neatly every day — but only one can officially claim to be the best bagger in the land.
This year, that title went to Rocco Cammarota, who works at a Publix store in Georgia and outraced other state-level winners to win the National Grocers Association’s Best Bagger Championship on Monday during the trade group’s annual conference in Las Vegas.
Contenders in the event score points for speed, proper technique, effective weight distribution, style, attitude and appearance, according to NGA’s manual for contestants. Cammarota and his fellow contestants scrambled to impress the judges in front of a noisy crowd during the championship, which was sponsored by PepsiCo. Fox Sports host Lindsay Czarniak served as emcee.
Cammarota took home a $10,000 prize for his achievement — the first time a Publix employee has claimed the title of best bagger since NGA launched the national competition in 1987. Ironically, Cammarota won the championship as a representative of one of the nation’s biggest supermarket chains at an event run by an organization that represents independent grocers.
