Member Article

Gateshead inventors aim to speed up shopping

A North East engineering company who created bags of interest in a new shopping trolley last year is making a push towards securing funding to progress the project.

The trolley is designed to eliminate the need for carrier bags in supermarkets altogether. Coupled with the addition of a high speed bar code scanner and a child seat the new design is set to save supermarkets thousands of pounds every year.

Business partners Ray Fenwick and Ian Fearon of Joma Engineering in Gateshead came up with the idea for a new trolley design after hearing that plastic carrier bags were being phased out by many supermarkets.

The prototype trolley works by suspending the shopper’s own biodegradable bags across the trolley on nylon rods. The bags hold the same capacity as conventional trolleys and the customer simply scans their shopping as they maneuver around the supermarket. Once all the shopping is complete, payment is made at one of the existing self-service tills already in use in many supermarkets.

The next enhancement to the trolley will be a device to prevent shoplifting.

“We’ve just had the new trolley tested in a local mini market in Gateshead and it is very maneuverable, stacks like a normal trolley and holds the same amount as a conventional trolley too,” said Ian. “We’ve also found that it is almost twice as fast to do a weekly shop using the new system - a factor that will save the customers time and the shop money.”

Ray and Ian are negotiating with investors both in this country and abroad with a view to trialing the system in a major supermarket under the brand name of Trollogy.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .