Tesco is set to launch its first checkout-free store following a successful trial for staff at its head office over the past year.
While plans are still currently in the early stages, chief executive Ken Murphy is hopeful it can match the appeal of similar scan-and-go stores being rolled out by Amazon in the UK.
Amazon launched its first convenience grocery store in March and opened another in London this week.
Tesco has been testing the checkout free system at its HQ in Welwyn Garden City.
"We have a system installed in our Express store in Welwyn Garden City (at head office), and we’ll extend that to another store in the coming weeks and months to check it in a more urban environment," Mr Murphy said.
"It's been opened about a year now, and it’s working really well… One of the joys of machine learning is it is continuously improving, so we’re feeling confident that we can put it into another store with a higher traffic."
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It comes as Tesco revealed sales managed to stay in positive territory in the 13 weeks to May 29 compared with a year ago, despite the same period in 2020 being during the height of the first lockdown when supermarket shelves were stripped bare.
But the Tesco boss said the pandemic boom in online shopping is continuing and demand for home cooking remains strong, with cooking and baking products up 20%.
He said: "The key changes that we’re seeing since the restrictions have been eased is a return to more normalised shopping patterns.
"We’re seeing higher frequency shopping and we’re seeing smaller basket sizes.
"We’re also seeing a shift again towards the weekend days being our peak shopping days in terms of traffic.
"There’s definitely been a shift back to eating out (but) there continues to be a strong demand for eating at home.
"As a consequence, things like beer, wine and spirits have stayed remarkably strong.”
Recent good weather and the Euro 2020 football tournament have also helped, Mr Murphy added.
