FEATURE
SOWING the SEEDS
of
INNOVATION CUHACI & PETERSON’S FUTURESHOP LEVERAGES TECHNOLOGY TO FORGE A MORE SUSTAINABLE FUTURE
BY DAVIA MOSS
Photography by Julie Fletcher
T
he COVID-19 pandemic changed the way people live. It rapidly increased the need for virtual solutions to real-world problems. The sudden surge of digital dependency left many businesses wilting in the shadow of big-box retailers, unable to keep up with the manual labor supply that e-commerce fulfillment demands.
“With the onset of the pandemic in March, grocers and retailers were just trying to survive those first few months,” said Steven Duffy, senior vice president of design at Cuhaci & Peterson, a firm of architects, engineers and planners. “Most were completely unprepared for the tsunami of ‘buy online, pick up in store’ orders they received. The automation of manual labor was not in place to handle the wave that flooded their operations.”
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Duffy, a 30-year engineering and retail industry leader, sees new challenges for grocers and business owners. He thinks integrating technology into retail fulfillment can solve many of those pain points while also contributing to a more streamlined and sustainable future — and that’s exactly what Cuhaci & Peterson team members, along with the firm’s partners, have been re-imagining over the past five years.
FutureShop FutureShop is a network of forward-thinking design concepts that delivers solutions to increasingly insufficient retail models by re-imagining them as “click and mortar” stores of the future.
While the retail industry as a whole has reached an inflection point amplified by the pandemic, the grocery industry is at the crux of the impasse. Consumers expect an unlimited supply of goods and immediate fulfillment, yet they also want to pay less. FutureShop provides a cutting-edge solution to this modern-day problem: the omni store — a technology-driven retail environment that refines the shopping experience for both the consumer and the grocer. Taken from the growing push for omnichannel retail, which integrates online and offline marketing channels to offer a unified customer experience, the omni store will integrate artificial intelligence, or AI, robotics, blockchain technology and other innovative systems to provide a seamless customer experience regardless of whether the client is shopping online or in a store.
