As grocers raced to figure out solutions to compete against Amazon’s arrival in 2017, startups like Takeoff have raised hundreds of millions in venture capital to help bring retailers into the 21st century. Microfulfillment is one of the most talked about solutions in the industry at the moment, relying on robots instead of humans to pick inventory in dedicated warehouses or underutilized space within existing retail. Last weekend, I visited the Clifton facility and one of its sister retail locations to better understand how it all works. Unlike other microfulfillment solutions like Fabric that are working to build on-demand grocery centers that offer sub 1-hour delivery times, Takeoff is merely attempting to automate some of Shoprite’s manual grocery picking. Here’s how an online order is fulfilled, from start to finish.

1. Shoprite customer orders on its website

Nothing on the customer-side really changes with Shoprite’s microfulfillment. If you added any items to your shopping cart before going through the required registration for an account and loyalty program, you’ll have to start all over again.

Shopping for bacon (not picked by robots)

Once I’ve registered, I can reserve a 2hr timeslot for delivery or a 30 minute pickup window. Most orders are not same-day. In order to deliver the last slot of the day, orders would have to be placed by 9:30am. Looks like I was a little too late.

Shoprite’s microfulfillment solution is largely designed for next-day and predictable weekly ordering

2. Order gets picked at Clifton microfulfillment center

Inside, a hybrid of robots and workers assemble an average 60-item order in about five minutes. Refrigerated, frozen, and oversized items are picked manually from grocery-like aisles as well as walk-in freezers and fridges. Knapp’s robotic pickers locate inventory stored in grey plastic bins, placing them on a conveyor, where about half of the 20 employees select the individual item and adds it to an order tote. Every few hours, a large truck pulls into the center to pick up totes to be delivered to the five neighboring retail locations for final order preparation and ultimately, pickup or delivery.