Ahold Delhaize USA is expanding its Savings Station discount kiosks to every Giant Food location, giving shoppers a physical way to access digital coupons, personalized offers, and loyalty rewards in-store.

Chris Walton and Jenn Hahn discuss whether kiosks can still bridge the gap between physical grocery shopping and digital personalization in 2026.

▶️ Watch the full Fast Five episode here: https://youtu.be/VL3Q373gkfY

Ajo Delez USA is expanding its savings station discount kiosks beyond Stop and Shop, rolling them out to every Giant Food location across Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C. according to chain store age.

And as loyal fans of the show will likely remember, the in store kiosks, which are located near store entrances, let customers scan their loyalty card or enter their phone number to instantly load weekly digital coupons and activate personalized rewards offers with all eligible discounts automatically applied at checkout.

Customers can also print a customized savings list.

Yes, print a customized savings list, enroll in Giant's loyalty program, and access seasonal recipes and family friendly principal activities directly from the kiosk ahold.

You know, I hate to be so agreeable because I feel like you've got to have some disagreement, but I like this too.

You do?

Yeah, I do.

So there are different types of shoppers, right?

I don't think we're solving yesterday's problem.

I think we're really creating a bridge.

But when I'll come back to the different types of shoppers first and I'll get back to that bridge.

In grocery especially anyone in the grocery industry that's anywhere near marketing, customer service operations knows there are a lot of customers that still like their print ad.

They are upset if their ad doesn't come in the Sunday newspaper.

I mean, there's just this, like, tradition involved in grocery shopping.

They have their local grocer, right?

Or their grocery store they go to.

And with those customers, this is such a great opportunity to get them involved in your loyalty program and using, you know, whatever type of perks you want to offer them in their customized savings list.

And you're meeting them where they're at, right?

With loyalty programs and apps and things.

That's maybe the way of the future.

But I think we're often asking customers to proactively go to a site and download something in advance or remember their password or clip a digital coupon.

We're just asking for a lot of activity outside of the physical store where this allows us to say, hey, welcome.

Welcome to the store.

Would you like to save some money today?

We can Print you a personalized savings list.

And I can see some customers that will just be pretty wowed by that and they'll actually take advantage of the loyalty program.

Where before, if you said, like, you can sign up online and download an app, they wouldn't have been into it.

So, again, I don't think it's solving yesterday's problems.

I think it's somewhat removing friction in the moment that the customer is most likely to engage.

And I would be really interesting, like this added layer that it could create for merchants and ops people engaging with those customers, like, what actually changes their behavior, what gets them to add to the basket.

If you have inventory that needs to turn quickly, if your avocados came in too ripe, I don't know, can you get that on everybody's personalized list?

It's so interesting to me to see how this could work and be that bridge as personalized.

It could be.

Yeah, yeah.

And be that bridge between.

To come back to my bridge analogy between the physical grocery shopper and all of the digital personalization and sort of data points that we're leaning into in the future of grocery.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well.

Oh, man, Jen, I can't believe we're gonna go.

We, we're about to go three for now.

We're not.

We're not.

I'm gonna agree with you on this one.

I'm not gonna go three for three on this disagreement.

Yeah, no, no, no.

I, I, I mean, I, I, I think you're saying the right points.

I mean, I think if you step back from this story, there's no doubt that the kiosk is in a lot of ways analogous to trying to improve the typewriter.

It just is.

I mean, you know, when you think about it, if you think about grocery 50 years from now.

But does that make it a silly investment?

I don't think it does.

Not one bit.

I mean, you can do both if you do them smartly.

To your point, you give the customers the solution who need this and want this added service, and you still are investing to become more digitally forward.

So net net, I like it.

Provided one big caveat.

You're still trying to become more digitally forward.

But this is a great example of my, in my opinion of omnichannel retailing, because, Jen, you're bringing up great things.

There's, there's cool ways to personalize this too.

In, in ways or ways, shapes or forms that we haven't even thought about.

I never thought about that until you even said that.

And so, you know, it's just about placing the bets in the right spot and being smart and not getting over your skis on any one thing.

But I think you still have to be evolving digitally.

But, you know, for all intents and purposes, it looks like they're seeing the return on this because it worked.

It stop and shop.

And now they're rolling it out, so.

So I like it.

Kiosks for all.

Kiosks for all.

Yes.

I don't know that I would go that far.

Yeah, no, let's not say that.

No.

This is actually one use case where kiosks may actually make sense.

I hate digital kiosks, but for lots and lots of reasons, as many people on the show will know.

Jen.