How to Shape the Food Retail Experience of Tomorrow

At the beginning of the pandemic, some retailers used a limited number of shopping carts to control how many customers entered their stores. It was a pragmatic response, but not everyone liked the experience. When retailers brought that problem to the Food Tech Campus, the team connected them with a startup that developed a simple alternative: an infrared sensor linked to a traffic-light display showing whether the store had reached capacity.

For Jan Lingenbrinck, the example captures what the campus is there to do. In this episode of Innovation Rockstars, the Food Lover and Tech Scout joins Dr. Christian Mühlroth to explain how the Berlin operation connects startups with EDEKA’s retail network. The work involves more than finding interesting technology. It means understanding a merchant’s problem, finding the right people and helping a proposed solution survive the practical journey into use.

Make the problem understandable on both sides

Lingenbrinck describes the Food Tech Campus as a link between startups and the EDEKA group, with roots in a smaller initiative launched in 2017. Organisationally part of EDEKA Digital, it works with independent merchants, headquarters colleagues and other stakeholders.

That setting matters. In his account, much innovation happens locally, where retailers know their customers and can test something that fits their stores. A central recommendation cannot automatically create demand across the whole network.

The campus therefore needs to understand what merchants want and explain it in a way a startup can act on. It also helps external companies navigate a large organisation and find someone with a reason to engage.

A solution may have technical merit and still lack a clear home inside the business. Giving such topics a place to be examined is part of the campus’s role. The team helps establish who might use the idea, what needs testing and which colleagues should be involved.

Give scouting a clear starting point

The team uses several routes to find opportunities. One begins with a specific challenge and a search for companies that could help solve it. Sustainability questions around food waste or packaging provide examples of search areas Lingenbrinck discusses.

Networks of universities, experts and startups expand the available perspectives. Growing visibility also brings incoming approaches, but those can be varied and difficult to compare.

To create more focus, the campus publishes specific topics and invites companies to apply with relevant solutions. Selected applicants can then be connected with stakeholders who understand the problem.

The process still allows for unexpected possibilities. Sometimes the team encounters a solution to an issue it had not previously recognised and looks for a corresponding need inside the business. That openness works alongside focused scouting, rather than replacing the need to establish a useful application.

Help a promising idea through the unglamorous work

Access to potential customers is valuable, but introductions are only part of the offer. Lingenbrinck describes the work needed to become a supplier, navigate requirements and make a product or service usable in practice.

Depending on the proposal, the relevant conversations may include audits, certifications, data protection or billing. The campus can bring in expertise and help identify the people who need to contribute.

For a small company, those connections can reduce the effort of finding a route through an unfamiliar organisation. For the retailer, they help turn an interesting pitch into something that can be assessed more concretely.

The work resembles product development as much as networking. A team needs to understand the conditions around adoption, not only demonstrate the core technology. Missing a practical dependency can stop progress even when the original idea attracts interest.

Build adoption store by store

The campus uses events, newsletters and internal channels to reach merchants. Lingenbrinck describes a Buyers Pitch format that brings startup ideas and products into a discussion with retailers. Returning participants help create further opportunities for pilots and projects.

But access to a platform does not mean automatic rollout.

“You have to put in the work and go from store to store to get some success.”

The capacity-management example shows why a clear problem helps. Retailers could readily understand what the sensor and display were intended to do. Lingenbrinck recalls other stores adopting the approach as it became known. He does not provide a quantified outcome, so the useful lesson is the connection between a visible need and a straightforward response.

The same simplicity cannot be assumed for every retail technology. Different stores and stakeholders still have to decide whether a proposed change makes sense in their setting.

Keep the network useful as formats change

The pandemic also forced the campus to change its own ways of working. Meetings, events and collaboration moved online, and Lingenbrinck remembers the speed with which stakeholders adapted as a personal innovation highlight.

Digital formats expanded the reach of the network and reduced some travel demands. Yet a physical space retained a clear purpose, especially when the work involved tasting food. The interview leaves open how that balance would develop rather than declaring one format the permanent answer.

Lingenbrinck takes a similarly measured position on the future of retail. He expects digital solutions to matter when they create a benefit customers and merchants can recognise.

“The customers ultimately decide what they like and what they don't”

That principle gives the campus a consistent task even as technologies and formats change. Keep listening to the people who run the stores, make their challenges visible to potential partners and help promising ideas reach a fair test. A network becomes valuable through those connections, and through the patient follow-through that gives a useful solution a chance to be adopted.