Denmark Trials Humanoid Shelf-Stocking Robots

Denmark’s largest retailer is testing humanoid robots that could one day restock supermarket shelves overnight, part of a pilot at a Føtex store near Copenhagen that aims to have the machines working on their own by early 2027.

The trial is being run by Salling Group, which operates more than 2,000 stores across six European countries. The robots were developed by the Danish start-up Hive Robots and built by the Chinese manufacturer Unitree. They have been in training since June. For now, human operators guide every movement, which allows the artificial intelligence systems to learn how to pick up different products and place them on shelves.

The focus is on night shifts, when the store is closed to shoppers. Føtex says its employees spend between 40 and 50 per cent of their working time replenishing shelves. By handing part of that repetitive physical work to machines, the retailer hopes staff will be free to spend more time helping customers.

The ambitions extend beyond restocking. At a later stage, Salling Group envisages the robots checking expiry dates, identifying empty shelves and spotting products that have been put in the wrong place.

Significant obstacles remain. The robots still move more slowly than human workers and require close supervision, which limits how much value they can add at this stage. Danish law would also have to change before the machines could operate autonomously among customers, which is why the first phase is confined to night-time hours and areas where no shoppers are present.

The pilot is part of an extensive Salling Group strategy to use artificial intelligence and robotics in running its stores. The reports do not say how many robots are involved, which Føtex branch is hosting the trial, or what the programme costs.