Trim trolley
The Packer has never covered this story that broke in 2004 and has apparently has not resurfaced since. At the time, Tesco introduced a "trim trolley" to give customers a gentle workout in their shopping trip. The audacity of such an invention is admirable, but since we have not heard any more about the "trim trolley" I'm guessing they are gathering dust in some London warehouse. From the story in the Timesonline from 2004:
Next week the chain wheels out the Tesco Trim Trolley, designed to make the typical 40-minute supermarket shop into a gentle workout. The shopper sets it to “different levels of shopping resistance” — making it harder or easier to push — and the trolley monitors heart rate, number of calories burnt, and when the shopper starts to burn fat instead of carbohydrates.
Shoppers are thought to burn up about 160 calories during a typical 40-minute visit to the supermarket, but pushing the Trim Trolley for the same time with the resistance level set at seven — with ten being the hardest — the average person would use up 280 calories, the equivalent of a 20-minute swim at a leisurely pace, and about double the amount used in walking for 40 minutes.
Wayne Asher, a technical consultant on the project, said: “Most of us spend three or four hours a week pushing a trolley around. It’s hard for most of us to spend that much time in a gym. Shopping is subconscious exercise, and Tesco wants to make people aware of that, and more conscious about their health generally.”
Mr Asher added: “We hope it will make people think more about what they are putting in their trolleys. It should be harder to choose to buy cream gateaux when you’ve got calorie levels on your mind.”
Prototype Trim Trolleys are to be introduced for trial at Tesco’s store in Kensington, West London, next week.
“It is a response to customers’ growing concerns about health and fitness,” a Tesco spokeswoman said. “At the moment it is just a prototype and it is hard to say how many stores they could eventually be in. It depends how customers react to them.”
The prototype costs about £500, compared with £70 for a standard wire trolley, and Tesco has yet to decide on security measures to ensure the Trim Trolleys remain in the store. Derek Thowney, of Wanzl, which supplies Tesco with up to 100,000 trolleys a year, said: “It is the first time we have designed a trolley like this and there is nothing else like it in the world. It is a standard trolley but with the sort of fitness attachments added that you would find in a gym, enabling you to do a workout while you shop.”
The prototype’s introduction coincides with Tesco’s sponsorship of Race for Life in which an estimated 325,000 women will run, jog or walk 5km at 150 venues over the coming months in aid of Cancer Research UK.
Shoppers are thought to burn up about 160 calories during a typical 40-minute visit to the supermarket, but pushing the Trim Trolley for the same time with the resistance level set at seven — with ten being the hardest — the average person would use up 280 calories, the equivalent of a 20-minute swim at a leisurely pace, and about double the amount used in walking for 40 minutes.
Wayne Asher, a technical consultant on the project, said: “Most of us spend three or four hours a week pushing a trolley around. It’s hard for most of us to spend that much time in a gym. Shopping is subconscious exercise, and Tesco wants to make people aware of that, and more conscious about their health generally.”
Mr Asher added: “We hope it will make people think more about what they are putting in their trolleys. It should be harder to choose to buy cream gateaux when you’ve got calorie levels on your mind.”
Prototype Trim Trolleys are to be introduced for trial at Tesco’s store in Kensington, West London, next week.
“It is a response to customers’ growing concerns about health and fitness,” a Tesco spokeswoman said. “At the moment it is just a prototype and it is hard to say how many stores they could eventually be in. It depends how customers react to them.”
The prototype costs about £500, compared with £70 for a standard wire trolley, and Tesco has yet to decide on security measures to ensure the Trim Trolleys remain in the store. Derek Thowney, of Wanzl, which supplies Tesco with up to 100,000 trolleys a year, said: “It is the first time we have designed a trolley like this and there is nothing else like it in the world. It is a standard trolley but with the sort of fitness attachments added that you would find in a gym, enabling you to do a workout while you shop.”
The prototype’s introduction coincides with Tesco’s sponsorship of Race for Life in which an estimated 325,000 women will run, jog or walk 5km at 150 venues over the coming months in aid of Cancer Research UK.
TK: How about going the extra mile and put RFID tags on all the food and a RFID reader on the cart? Putting in a head of broccoli would reset the cart to zero resistance, while a package of Ding Dongs would put the resistance level to maximum. The shopping cart as a means to change behavior....
Labels: FDA, The Packer
posted by Tom Karst @ 10:17 AM
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