Last week, I went down a rabbit hole.

It was the little robot dogs that distracted me. I was researching an article on the future of food and what shopping will look like in 2030, when I was sucked into videos of these robot dogs tottering along the street.

One fella bounded up to a front door, stretched out his little robot paw to ring the doorbell and lowered his back to gently slide a package onto the porch.

I mean you’d nearly give him a pat on the head.

This all sounds very futuristic, but this concept isn’t years away. Small robotic delivery units are being trialled right now.

Snohomish County in Washington state, US, was the first place in the world to see the six-wheeled Amazon Scout vehicles roll along the footpath. They are the size of a small fridge and move at walking pace to deliver parcels to people’s doors as part of the Amazon Prime subscription.

Closer to home in the UK, Tesco and Co-op Food are also experimenting with this technology

The electric vehicle can change to suit different-sized parcels and are now being rolled out in Atlanta and Tennessee as Amazon assesses how well it gets the job done.

Closer to home in the UK, Tesco and Co-op Food are also experimenting with this technology. Co-op Food is ahead of the game, and when the pandemic hit they were actually in a position to deliver people’s food shop via robots in the Milton Keyes area, making thousands of deliveries a week. The Starship Technologies’ robots have GPS software so they don’t get lost and when they arrive with your shopping, you get a personal shopper code to open them.

This doesn’t mean the end of physical shops, but things will change

It isn’t without its hiccups though and there are some entertaining pictures online of robots getting caught in puddles or getting stuck in the snow. I’ll be interested to see how they’ll navigate the back roads of rural Kerry and the farms of Donegal.

This doesn’t mean the end of physical shops, but things will change – some say for the better. I always enjoy a good snoop around the supermarket. I love looking at new brands and reading labels, I’m a total supermarket geek.

That little robot might even load it into your car. C’mere, it’ll be bliss

Here’s what I don’t love: loading the shopping at the till while my daughter is screeching, packing everything in bags, getting it into the car and then putting everything away when you get home. Who’s with me? Well, the future of supermarkets may have little robot arms that pick up your regulars like milk and bread – scanning them as they put it in the trolley – thereby avoiding the palaver at the till. That little robot might even load it into your car. C’mere, it’ll be bliss.

Another way of shopping was presented by McKinsey & Company. It predicts that in the future, food shopping will have two elements. The first will be a personalised system where technology will know how often you order your regulars ie milk every week, washing tablets every month and these items will be delivered by subscription or online delivery.

This will leave you time (and energy!) to embrace the second element: food shopping as a pleasurable experience. Speciality food shops are set to get even more popular. With less pressure to get the big shop done, it will mean more time to chat at the till, try new artisan products and support local, which ironically brings us back to embracing the shopping habits of old.