TikTok User Turns To The Internet For Help After Spotting A Robot At The Grocery Store

Never in my life have I seen a robot at a grocery store. I definitely would be excited to see one, but it's also very surreal to see something out of science fiction just bumping around a grocery store.

He thought it might be for enforcing COVID protocols, which I think would be kind of cool. Then people could yell at a robot instead of people getting paid minimum wage just trying to get through the day, you know?

David tried to stand in front of it, but nothing happened. So, what the hell is this thing, and why does Badger Technologies have robots in grocery stores? TikTok users had some guesses.

They thought its purpose was to go around the store and detects spills and messes, then alert human employees to clean them. However, that seems like a pretty minor job for such an expensive robot.

This is Badger. It's a retail robot created by Badger Technologies, and its purpose has nothing to do with cleaning. This thing is designed to keep track of stock, price differences, and empty shelves.

It logs gaps in the shelves, price differences, and stock quantities. The data is then used to increase store efficiency and allow for employees to see what's in stock, what's out of place, and what needs re-ordering.

But here's the thing: Badger technologies HAS created a new robot during the pandemic, and it does have some ties to our more familiar cleaning robots.

It doesn't clean up messes, but it DOES do something we've become very used to during COVID: it sanitizes. This UV robot goes up and down the shelves and sanitizes everything on them with a UV light.

They can be found in Woodman's Markets, where they're being constantly being tested for national rollout. I would love to see one of these things in the wild!