Automated Cleaning System Disinfects Carts at Shopping Facilities

Supervising and performing shopping cart disinfection can be a time-consuming task at retail facilities for both workers and customers. Entering a store and grabbing a disinfectant wipe for your cart or waiting for an employee to clean it for you has become one of the norms when shopping. The thoroughness of the cleaning is dependent on the person doing the sanitizing.

Grocery store chain Hy-Vee Inc. is implementing an automatic cleaning system that will thoroughly sanitize shopping carts after every use. Hy-Vee said it is the first grocery chain to implement this automated cleaning cart system, which will be in more than 200 stores by mid-November across eight Midwestern states: Iowa, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin. Hy-Vee has more than 275 retail stores.

The automated system was designed specifically to help eliminate the SARS-CoV-2 virus by applying a hospital-grade disinfectant through a low-pressure, quick-dry spray system. The system works quickly, sanitizing one to two carts per second. The cart-cleaning system does not take up much space and can be easily set up for customer use. Most importantly, the system eliminates the need to manually clean each cart throughout the day and guarantees a thorough cleaning.