It happens every day. You forget to pay for the 12-pack of soda in the undercarriage of the shopping cart, just where the cashier couldn't see it. Or you accidentally tell the self-checkout machine that the six apples in the bag are Red Delicious, when they are, in fact, the pricier Fuji.
Mistakes are made. You're human.
Supermarkets understand this, and they want to help. That is why some are investing in new, mistake-proof tools.
There's Veggie Vision, now being tested at nearly a dozen U.S. supermarkets. The technology recognizes fruits and vegetables inside a bag. When consumers place a product on a scale, Veggie Vision identifies it, weighs it and rings up the cost.
A camera and computer examine the item based on its size, color, shape and texture -- so many characteristics that the system hardly ever makes a mistake, said Dan Hopping, a retail consultant at International Business Machines Corp., which developed the technology.
(And who, despite our pleading, declined to identify the supermarkets using Veggie Vision.)
Targeting consumer fraud, er, mistakes, is not Veggie Vision's only goal. It also targets cashiers who frequently misidentify produce as they rush customers through the checkout line. "The majority of cashiers don't know the difference between most produce if it's in a bag," Hopping said.
There are, for example, tangerines, which look a whole lot like clementines. There are red grapes, easily mistaken for seedless red grapes. And there are plain old onions, which can readily pass for Vidalias.
"Pretty confusing, huh?" Hopping said.
Indeed. So far, supermarkets are testing Veggie Vision in self-service produce departments, where customers bag, weigh and label their purchases. Down the road, IBM expects to link the technology to its self-checkout systems at the cash register.
Wegmans, the high-end grocery chain with two stores in Northern Virginia, says it is looking into similar produce-spying technology for its stores. The chain allows consumers to weigh, bag and price their fruit before heading to the register.
"Customers make mistakes," said Wegmans spokeswoman Jo Natale. "We start with the premise that the vast majority of our customers are not out to cheat us."
Ever vigilant about consumer errors, supermarkets are also testing a new technology called, aptly enough, Lane Hawk. The system can identify any product in the undercarriage of a shopping cart as it passes through the checkout lane. Like Veggie Vision, it uses a camera and computer.
Lane Hawk automatically charges consumers for their purchases. Evolution Robotics Inc., which designed Lane Hawk, lists about 50 products that are most often carried out at the bottom of carts without being paid for, with dog food, diapers, and bulk packages of soda, water and paper towels topping the list.
Some are mistakes, some are theft, said Alec Hudnut, chief executive at Evolution Robotics. The company estimates that under-the-cart losses, intentional or not, cost grocery stores more than $1 billion a year. Evolution Robotics calls it the "bottom-of-the-basket problem."
"These are bulky products we are talking about, with a value of anywhere between $6 and $20," Hudnut said. "It adds up."
Lane Hawk, like Veggie Vision, is hard to trick. Shoppers who try to quickly push their cart past the system's camera are in for a disappointment. In tests, people threw their carts through the checkout lane with a running start. And still, the camera recognized products and charged for them.
