Supermarket chain Aldi is trialling its first checkout-free contactless store in continental Europe in the Dutch city of Utrecht, enabling customers to enter the store by scanning an app, selecting items from the shelves and then leaving without needing to scan their purchases or use a conventional checkout.

Customers are automatically charged for their purchases using a credit card linked to Aldi’s Shop & Go app as they leave the shop.

The pilot store in Utrecht’s Lange Viestraat is testing a system that uses artificial intelligence, intelligent cameras and shelf sensors to track each customer and the products they select, but “does not use facial recognition, eye or fingerprint scans, nor the use of other biometric identifiers”, Aldi says.

A short video (in Dutch) shows how the system works:

Aldi began testing its first contactless store in the UK in September 2021 and added facial age estimation technology for customers wishing to purchase age-restricted products in January 2022 after opening the outlet for public testing.

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