What’s Happening: Gatik, a leader in autonomous middle mile logistics, announced a multi-year commercial collaboration with Kroger to transport customer orders within the supermarket chain’s Dallas distribution network. Gatik’s medium-duty autonomous box trucks will carry goods from a Kroger Customer Fulfillment Center (CFC) in Dallas to multiple retail locations.
Why It Matters: This partnership demonstrates Kroger’s commitment to innovative technology for enhancing customer service. Autonomous deliveries offer increased speed and responsiveness, reduced costs, and dedicated capacity for the middle mile of the supply chain, ultimately benefiting Kroger’s customers.
Key Points:
- Gatik’s autonomous trucks have a cold chain-capable 20-foot box designed for transporting ambient, refrigerated, and frozen goods efficiently and safely.
- The collaboration entails multiple delivery runs seven days a week across Kroger’s Dallas distribution network.
- Operations are set to launch in Q2, 2023.
- Gatik has already delivered half a million customer orders since its commercial operations began in 2019.
Bottom Line: Gatik’s autonomous middle mile solution will support Kroger in meeting customers’ needs, whether they shop online or in-store. The partnership aims to provide faster and more reliable access to goods, enhancing the overall shopping experience for Kroger’s customers.
About – Gatik, the leader in autonomous middle mile logistics, delivers goods safely and efficiently using its fleet of light and medium duty trucks. The company focuses on short-haul, B2B logistics for Fortune 500 customers including Kroger, Walmart, Loblaw, and Georgia-Pacific, and in 2021 became the first company worldwide to operate fully driverless commercial deliveries on the middle mile. Gatik’s Class 3-6 autonomous box trucks are commercially deployed in multiple markets including Texas, Arkansas and Ontario. Founded in 2017 by veterans of the autonomous technology industry, Gatik partners with industry leaders including Isuzu, Ryder, Goodyear and Cummins and has offices in Mountain View, Dallas-Fort Worth and Toronto. In 2022, Gatik was recognized as a TIME Best Invention, named to Forbes’ list of America’s Best Startup Employers and by Fast Company as a World Changing Idea. Gatik has also been recognized as a Forbes AI 50 company.
