Cologne/Düsseldorf 24-02-2026 Yesterday, as part of EuroShop 2026, the EHI honoured the winners of the reta awards for the 19th time at a festive ceremony in the historical soap factory in Duesseldorf, Dr. Thompson’s Seifenfabrik. Three equally ranked winners accepted the award in the following five categories: Artificial Intelligence, Checkout & Smart Store, Customer Experience, Employee Empowerment and Supply Chain, just one in the special category MarTech Innovation.
Category: Artificial Intelligence
This category honors retailers that have successfully implemented AI and robotics to optimize operations. The winners are:
Albert Czechia (Top Supplier*: Mettler Toledo)
Albert Czechia, based in Prague, is modernizing its checkout and service processes with AI-supported item recognition. The solution ensures fast and accurate identification of unpackaged goods without barcodes at the checkout and reduces sources of error, e.g., by mixing up products during manual data entry.
Netto Marken-Discount (Top Supplier: Trigo Vision)
In response to the increasing loss prevention challenges in the grocery retail sector, the discount food retailer has developed an innovative computer vision. By intelligently using the existing CCTV infrastructure, the system detects unpaid items, scan manipulations, and suspicious patterns in real time and informs employees in a targeted manner. With the help of innovative computer vision technology, the German discount grocery chain can use its CCTV infrastructure to detect unpaid items, tampering, and suspicious behavior patterns at its self-checkout systems in real time and notify employees accordingly.
Sonae (Top Supplier: Sensei)
Sonae MC is setting new standards in the food sector with a 1,200 square meter autonomous smart store in Leira, Portugal, offering over 11,000 items. Purchases are also recorded in real time at fresh food counters for baked goods, fish, and meat using a combination of AI, computer vision, and sensors. There is no need for scanning or queuing, and the shopping receipt is generated digitally in real time.
Category: Checkout & Smart Store
This category honors innovative checkout and store concepts. The winners are:
Colruyt Group (Top Supplier: Expresso Deutschland)
Colruyt Group has launched the next generation of smart shopping carts. The SmartShopper EyeQ uses a network of cameras and weighing sensors to scan products via camera technology. Integrated sensors enable location-based advertising and targeted promotions. A smart scale integration in the fresh produce section automatically recognizes, weighs, and scans fruit and vegetables.
Lekkerland (Top Supplier: in-house)
Lekkerland is presenting the REWE To Go Smart Store at Frankfurt Airport: The 70 m² store uses AI-supported grab-and-go technology, enabling customers to check in with a payment card and purchase products in under 30 seconds without checkout process. IoT technology enables the sale of coffee and age-restricted items.
Lengermann & Trieschmann (L&T) (Top Supplier: Vusion, GK Artificial Intelligence for Retail)
Until now, price labeling in the brick-and-mortar fashion store in Osnabrück has been done entirely manually. At the start of the fall/winter 2025 season, the project partners introduced hang tags for around 20,000 items in the L&T sales area and implemented price optimization software. The Intelligent Price Engine (IPE) continuously analyzes demand trends, inventory levels, and external market data to make accurate, dynamic pricing decisions.
Category: Customer Experience
This category honors retailers that have introduced forward-thinking methods and technologies to enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty. The winners are:
China Resources Vanguard (Top Supplier: Hanshow Technology)
China Resources Vanguard implemented a shelf marketing solution based on NFC-enabled electronic shelf labels (ESL) in a pilot project. Existing ESL were upgraded to interactive touchpoints that serve as both price displays and digital entry points for promotions and coupons. Customers interact directly at the shelf via smartphone, without an app or QR code.
Kaufland Stiftung (Top Supplier: Schwarz Digits, Bizerba)
Kaufland Stiftung is integrating the "MyOrder" solution. They have transformed service points into efficient omnichannel fulfillment hubs, soon to be enhanced by AI-powered object recognition. The concept is seamless: Customers select from a wide range of products at an in-store kiosk, while their orders appear in real-time on the scales.
MediaMarktSaturn (Top Supplier: Accesa IT Group)
MediaMarktSaturn is making its product manuals easier to understand with the AI-supported “Smart Manual” solution. The chatbot, which can be accessed via QR code or web link, is available around the clock and provides answers to customer queries based on an extensive knowledge database.
Category: Employee Empowerment
This category honors solutions that enhance daily work of employees. The winners are:
Deichmann (Top Supplier: Qualitize)
Shoe retailer introduces an app for structured communication, task management and reporting in stores – for international use. Seamlessly integrated into Deichmann's IT ecosystem, the solution includes single sign-on and bidirectional API data exchange. Employees can create reports with checklists, ratings, photo uploads, comments and a speech-to-text function and many more functions.
Rossmann (Top Supplier: Scheer IMC)
The German drug store has developed an interactive de-escalation training program that is fully integrated into the IMC-Learning Suite (LMS). The solution uses gamified scenarios with branching decision logic in which employees can simulate realistic customer conflicts and test different communication strategies.
Thalia (Top Supplier: in-house)
German bookseller Thalia has developed Minerva, an AI-powered recommendation assistant to support its brick-and-mortar retail staff. The web application is used on iPad devices and provides data and services via a dialogue-based interface. Technically, Minerva is based on a multi-agent system with specialized expert agents for tasks such as product searches and knowledge graph queries.
Category: Supply Chain Excellence
This category honors companies with outstanding supply chain solutions. The winners are:
Coop Sverige (Top Supplier: SSI Schäfer)
Coop has developed a highly automated and energy-efficient logistics centre in Sweden. The solution integrates the entire material flow process for ambient and fresh goods, from goods receipt and high-bay warehouses to depalletising stations, automated small-parts warehouses, and robot-assisted palletising.
Globus (Top Supplier: consenso, SAP)
German retailer Globus has implemented Intelligent Data Modelling (iDM) to improve the quality of its master data. The SAP Hana application replaces the Excel-based quality assurance system. Over 100 rules check millions of data records every day, and most errors are corrected automatically.
Marc O’Polo (Top Supplier: KPS)
Marc O’Polo was confronted with growing complexity in its international supply chain. A state-of-the-art, SAP S/4HANA-based omnichannel replenishment platform was implemented. This solution optimizes inventory management, demand forecasting, and procurement through real-time data and AI-driven forecasts.
Special Category: MarTech Innovation
This year's special category honors innovations in marketing technology that enable retailers to plan, target, and optimize their communications and customer engagement. The winner is:
Koçtaş (Top Supplier: Tani Marketing Technologies)
The leading home improvement retailer in Turkey implemented a Loyalty-as-a-Service (LaaS) platform to unify and automate the customer journey. The solution is based on an API-driven microservice architecture and offers omnichannel data integration, hyper-personalization, and real-time interactions to make campaigns faster and more precise.
*Top-Supplier Retail
The technology partners of the retail companies honoured with the reta awards will once again be named Top Supplier Retail by EHI and Lebensmittel Zeitung this year. The spectrum of honoured service providers ranges from start-ups to global players. What they all have in common is that, in the eyes of the reta jury, they have rendered outstanding services to their partners in the retail sector. The coveted award has been presented since 2015 and has long been regarded as a seal of quality in the retail tech industry.
More information on the award winners: www.reta-europe.com
Download Photos Winners (Copyright EHI)
https://www.ehi.org/wp-content/uploads/Presse/Downloads/23022026_reta_photos.zip
Contact EHI
Imke Hahn, Project Manager of Research IT, +49 (0)221/57993-991, hahn@ehi.org
Ute Holtmann, Director of Public Relations, Tel.: +49 (0)2 21/5 79 93-42, holtmann@ehi.org
Publisher
EHI Retail Institute e. V., Spichernstraße 55, 50672 Cologne, Tel.: +49 221/57993-0, Fax: -45
About EHI
EHI is a research, training and consultancy institute for the retail industry and its partners. It has some 80 employees. The international EHI network comprises some 850 member companies from the retail, consumer goods and capital goods industries, along with service providers. EHI is also a shareholder of GS1 Germany and Agraya. It is a partner of Messe Düsseldorf and important trade shows like EuroShop. The President of EHI is Markus Tkotz, Managing Director of Markant. The Managing Director of EHI is Ulrich Spaan.
