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NEWS FOODLAND HIGHLIGHTS ‘PLANET FRIENDLY’ PRODUCTS Foodland Supermarkets has launched a ‘planet friendly’ icon, which is now featuring in its weekly catalogue. The icon has been developed by the Foodland team as a part of a wider sustainability strategy. It will be used to signal products and brands that are making significant steps to be sustainable, reusable, and/or renewable. Promoting its commitment to helping South Australia (home to most of its 91 supermarket locations) build a more sustainable future, Foodland says it intends to encourage shoppers to consider buying products that are “better for the planet”, by highlighting their benefits to the environment and featuring them more consistently in its weekly catalogue. The aim for these icons is to not only appeal to environmentally conscious South Australian shoppers, but also to encourage new shopping behaviour in the wider community. To be a part of Foodland’s ‘planet friendly edit’, products need to be made of sustainable materials, and/ or have little to no negative impact on the environment, or the welfare of humans. “As consumers are becoming more environmentally conscious, it’s important for us as a brand to meet their demand and desires to have ethical, considered products on our shelves,” Foodland Marketing Manager Nicole Richards said. “It’s always been important for us to be environmentally conscious, and we’re constantly finding ways to improve our sustainability efforts and communicate our initiatives and values to our customers.” DRAKES REPLACES AGEING IT SYSTEM Drakes Supermarkets has overhauled its IT systems with cloud company Nutanix. Working with Nutanix and Adelaide- based IT partner Nuago, the retailer has replaced its ageing IT environment with Nutanix hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI). The new infrastructure now supports Drakes’ $125 million distribution centre at Edinburgh North in Adelaide. Drakes says this includes the DC’s advanced robotics technology, warehouse management, POS, and enterprise resource planning systems, enabling the retailer to access and respond to real-time stock demand. “We’ve seen our warehousing and IT requirements more than double in the past few weeks, but we’ve maintained 100 per cent availability across all of our systems,” Drakes IT Manager Phillip Romano said. “We can now focus on taking care of our communities’ shopping needs, getting those staff who can to work remotely, and hire new staff directly from the increasing pool of unemployed Australians.” Drakes says that with Nutanix proving its prowess and resilience during the COVID-19 pandemic, the supermarket group will aim to expand the HCI environment across all stores and wholesale arms. Longer term, Drakes will aim to leverage the Nutanix Xi IoT edge intelligence platform – which uses artificial intelligence to provide real- time data insights – along with video analytics, to create new personalised experiences for customers. The retailer is also considering migrating to the Nutanix AHV hypervisor to support Drakes’ 250 virtual machines. “While consumers are currently flooding into supermarkets, the retail industry as a whole continues to experience unprecedented levels of pressure, competition and consolidation,” Mr Romano said. “To remain competitive and retain customer loyalty, we need to drive efficiency and create personalised experiences. We see Nutanix and Nuago as key to building the technology and infrastructure we need to do that.” 10 RETAIL WORLD MAY, 2020