Supermarket shopping has arrived on ChatGPT, with OpenAI introducing product recommendations and purchasing options to its AI chatbot. So how significant is the move? What does it entail? And how should brands and retailers respond?

🔗 READ MORE: www.thegrocer.co.uk/analysis-and...

Very excitable reviewer on Tesco

🚨🚨EXCLUSIVE🚨🚨: Benson & Hedges maker JTI has taken controlling stake in the UK’s largest indy vape company Flavour Warehouse.

JTI confirmed said deal was “in line with our exploratory approach for reduced-risk products beyond heated tobacco sticks”

🔗 Read more: www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/jti-tak...

A new ant-inspired ‘hairy gripper’ for robotic picking, which takes its cues from ant jaw mandibles, improves the capability of current robotic handling systems with “minimal increase in complexity or cost” Ocado + Amazon backed researchers say.

Read more here: www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/ant-ins...

Welcome to the incredibly tiresome, barely amusing
'PRANK DEATH' marketing stunt...

Liptons, Lynx Africa, Old Jamaica, Duo Lingo have all faked their own demise in recent months - a triesome trend that sees brands kill themselves off on social media, only to announce it was 'all just a prank bro'.

Nobody notices, because nobody cares. That’s how products usually die.

NOT with a big announcement on social media that a brand’s best-selling variant is about to be discontinued, complete with its own hashtag, angel wing graphics and carefully copywritten sign-off....

Grocery definitely starting to take cues from QSR. Co-op is rolling out more collection hatches. Sainsbury's is trialling lockers into which staff load orders, for couriers to collect, accessed with a code. But not so easy with older, smaller stores.

IN THE PICK OF IT

The need to pick at speed while serving instore customers, pressure from delivery couriers and the fact stores simply weren’t designed to double as fulfilment centres is creating a fraught environment that has left staff in tears.

THE QUICK COMMERCE CRISIS HURTING CONVENIENCE STORES AND HOW TO SOLVE IT

As rapid grocery delivery booms, stores are coming under immense strain...

- “A nightmare”
- “None of our stores have enough staff to meet the demand, work stock and maintain sanity”
- “completely out of hand”
- “a piss-take”

Lidl is rolling out its own-label viral smash hit Dubai Style Chocolate to stores nationwide on Saturday.

The 122g bar will be priced at £3.99 for shoppers with the LidlPlus app and £4.99 without.

Read more in @thegrocer.bsky.social : www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/lidl-ro...

Magnum has launched a “multisensory” advertising campaign that broadcasts the “unmistakable sound of its signature chocolate crack” to car radios when they pass billboards promoting the ice cream.

Cool idea? Or accident waiting to happen?

www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/magnum-...

Co-op has launched rapid delivery grocery app Peckish which it'll offer to independent convenience stores seeking to tap the growing home delivery market.

The retailer is ploughing £1m into Peckish and hoping to sign up more than 1,000 stores in the next year.

www.thegrocer.co.uk/news/co-op-l...

Here's what it looks like: