The Kroger Co. announced the opening of the Customer Fulfillment Center in Groveland, FL powered by Ocado Group. This marks Kroger's entry into the Florida market with an e-commerce delivery service that combines vertical integration, machine learning, and robotics with affordable, friendly, and fast delivery of grocery items and fresh food. In May 2018, Kroger and Ocado formed an exclusive partnership to introduce to the U.S. for the first-time proprietary technology solutions focused on artificial intelligence, advanced robotics and automation, and creative solutions to create efficient fulfillment and delivery capabilities. The Groveland CFC measures 375,000 square feet, carries thousands of popular grocery products, and represents one of the models engineered for the flexible Kroger Delivery network, which will also include smaller automated facilities and spoke locations. The CFC can fulfill thousands of orders per day. The Groveland CFC and spoke in Tampa are now open, with the Jacksonville spoke scheduled to open this month. The Groveland CFC joins the Monroe, OH CFC which opened earlier this spring. Kroger Delivery is a vertically integrated network, enabling coverage of up to 90 miles from the hub location in Groveland and significantly more territory when spoke locations, such as Tampa and Jacksonville, are integrated. In these highly automated Customer Fulfillment Centers, more than 1,000 bots whizz around giant 3D grids, orchestrated by proprietary air-traffic control systems in the unlicensed spectrum. The grid, known as The Hive, contains totes with products and ready-to-deliver customer orders. As customers' orders near their delivery times, the bots retrieve products from The Hive which are presented at stations for items to be sorted for delivery, a process governed by algorithms that ensures items are intelligently sorted. For example, fragile items are placed on top, bags are evenly weighted, and each order is optimized to fit into the fewest number of bags, reducing plastic use. Once completed, orders are loaded into a temperature-controlled Kroger Delivery van, which can store up to 20 orders. Powerful machine learning algorithms dynamically optimize delivery routes, considering factors like road conditions and optimal fuel efficiency.