Dive Brief:
- HelloFresh has grown its chilled fulfillment capacity from 100 SKUs to 500 SKUs via an expanded partnership with Locus Robotics, according to a news release last week.
- HelloFresh first deployed 13 Locus Origin robots for its Factor brand in July 2025 as part of a pilot program. The robots were able to handle their fulfillment tasks — from order induction to box drop-off — in three minutes and 36 seconds on average, the release said. HelloFresh expanded the deployment within three months, adding 26 more robots to the mix.
- The SKU expansion enables greater meal variety for HelloFresh customers and unlocks new revenue opportunities for the meal kit company, per the release. HelloFresh plans to add fulfillment support from Locus Robotics to its EveryPlate brand later this year.
Dive Insight:
HelloFresh's fulfillment model is a demanding one, with high volume and variety plus temperature-control requirements, Jasmine Lombardi, Locus Robotics' chief customer officer, said in the release.
Robots fulfilling orders in a refrigerated environment can also see reduced battery efficiency over time due to the lower temperatures. Locus developed a heated motor enhancement and charging modifications to ensure its Origin robots could reliably operate in the cold storage conditions. The robots are designed for high-volume order fulfillment, offering collaborative in-aisle picking with humans for fast-turning items, according to a company fact sheet.
"The implementation was extremely smooth, with much of the testing completed virtually before go-live," Brad Mesloh, HelloFresh's associate director of strategic design, said in the release. "Once the robots were on the floor, final validation took only a few days, making the deployment much quicker and simpler than our legacy systems."
Locus Robotics currently supports about 12,000 square feet of chilled fulfillment space for HelloFresh, including two meal kit picking lines, per the release. The robots move orders directly from induction to drop off in some instances to accelerate product movement. They are deployed at HelloFresh’s chilled fulfillment facility in Phoenix, a Locus Robotics spokesperson said in an email to sister site Supply Chain Dive.
The expanded deployment comes as HelloFresh pushes for improved efficiency within its operations. The company's fulfillment costs as a share of revenue improved by 0.8 percentage points year over year, excluding the impact of impairment and share-based compensation, CFO Fabien Simon said in a first-quarter earnings call in May.
"This is a direct output of the network optimization and productivity improvements [we’ve] embedded into the operating model," Simon said.
