Unilever aims to boost ice cream sales with smart freezers

Unilever has increased the deployment of its smart freezer system in an effort to better respond to the growing ice cream market. The company has a total of 3 million refrigerators worldwide, 50,000 of which are classified as smart freezers. These devices, which are mainly found in convenience stores, are a key part of their strategy to capitalize on the projected 5.7% growth in the global ice cream market between 2023 and 2028. 

The advanced freezers can open automatically once a customer places an order and pays contactlessly. Several of these refrigerators operate at higher temperatures to reduce energy costs, while others use smart technology to indicate when they need refilling. In the future, these devices could potentially be used to predict consumer demand.

Buying ice cream is often an unplanned activity. If a specific ice cream is not available when a customer feels like it, the sale is lost. Thanks to cameras in Unilever's smart freezers, photos are taken periodically that are sent to the cloud and analyzed using artificial intelligence. This system allows retailers to know in time when to replenish or reorder the stock of a particular ice cream.

Unilever.com