Morrisons Temperature-Controlled Grocery Lockers: New Click & Collect System Launches In UK Trial

Morrisons has launched temperature-controlled grocery lockers that allow shoppers to collect ambient, chilled and frozen food orders without waiting for supermarket staff to bring their shopping to a collection bay.

The new automated Click & Collect system has gone live at the supermarket’s Skipton store in North Yorkshire, which Morrisons is using as the pilot location for the technology.

The lockers have been developed by retail technology company StrongPoint and are capable of keeping different parts of the same grocery order at separate temperatures until the customer arrives.

Instead of parking in a Click & Collect bay and waiting for a colleague to bring the order outside, customers can receive a unique six-digit collection code, enter it at the locker terminal and open the compartments containing their shopping.

Morrisons says the trial is intended to make collections faster while also increasing the number of Click & Collect slots available to customers. The supermarket has described the introduction as the first UK supermarket deployment of StrongPoint’s grocery Click & Collect locker technology.

The distinction is important because parcel lockers and other forms of automated collection already exist extensively across UK retail. Morrisons itself has been expanding a separate parcel-locker network with Quadient.

The Skipton project is different because the lockers are specifically designed to hold full grocery orders across multiple temperature zones.

At the time of writing on 3 October 2026, Morrisons has not announced that the temperature-controlled grocery lockers will be rolled out nationally or introduced at London stores. Skipton remains the confirmed pilot site.

How Do the Morrisons Temperature-Controlled Grocery Lockers Work?

Customers continue to order their groceries through Morrisons’ online service and select a collection slot.

The store prepares the shopping before the customer arrives and places the products inside the appropriate locker compartments.

A grocery order containing cupboard products, milk, meat and frozen food could therefore be divided between several compartments rather than being stored together.

The system maintains chilled food at between 3°C and 5°C, while frozen products are held at approximately -18°C to -20°C. Ambient groceries are kept at around 16°C.

Larger compartments can accommodate up to three shopping bags. Smaller chilled and frozen sections can generally hold one or two bags depending on the order and available capacity.

Where a customer’s weekly shop is too large for a single compartment, the StrongPoint software can assign several locker doors to the same collection.

That means the system is not limited to shoppers collecting a small number of essentials. Morrisons says it can handle anything from a relatively small top-up shop to a much larger weekly grocery order.

Orders are also being placed into paper bags before collection. This changes the previous process at the trial store, where customers could receive loose groceries and then have to pack them themselves.

Once the shopping is ready, customers receive the code required to retrieve it.

The practical difference is that the order can already be waiting outside for collection rather than a member of staff having to respond to the customer’s arrival, locate the prepared order and take it to their vehicle.

That could be particularly significant during busy Click & Collect periods when several shoppers arrive within a relatively short window.

Morrisons has selected Skipton partly because it is already a high-volume Click & Collect location offering the supermarket’s full online range.

The supermarket is also extending Click & Collect operating hours at the branch by two hours per day as part of the pilot, creating additional collection opportunities without depending entirely on the traditional colleague-to-customer handover process.

There is still staff assistance available when it is needed.

VoCoVo technology integrated with the system allows a customer to press a help button and establish a two-way connection with colleagues inside the store.

This becomes particularly important when an order contains alcohol or another age-restricted product.

Rather than automatically releasing that part of the order, the relevant locker remains locked until a Morrisons colleague has completed the required identification check under the retailer’s Challenge 25 process.

Charlotte Exell, Group Online Director at Morrisons, said the company’s objective was to make Click & Collect “quick, convenient and flexible”, adding that the lockers should allow Morrisons to provide more collection slots while reducing waiting.

Alex Eveleigh, Senior Vice President for the UK and Ireland at StrongPoint, said grocery lockers offer customers “a faster, easier way to collect their shopping” while also making the collection operation easier for retailers to manage.

Morrisons Senior Productivity Manager Christopher Evison has also described the system as a significant change to the retailer’s Click & Collect operation.

Commenting on the launch, he highlighted the combination of pre-packed orders, longer operating hours and multi-temperature storage.

He said customers could simply “enter your unique six-digit code when you arrive and go.”

That last-mile handover is particularly important for Morrison supermarkets because online grocery shopping is operationally more complicated than collecting many ordinary retail purchases.

A clothing order, for example, can usually sit at room temperature until its owner arrives. A grocery order may simultaneously contain ice cream, raw meat, milk, vegetables, tins and household products, requiring very different storage conditions.

Temperature-controlled compartments are intended to automate the customer’s final handover without abandoning those food-storage requirements.

Industry technology specialists have increasingly argued that this final stage of Click & Collect is an area where automation can reduce congestion and colleague involvement.

Tyler Coates, General Manager at locker technology business Click n Collect, has previously said:

“We’re seeing grocers redesign stores around automated pickup as online orders outpace staffing models.”

His comments were about the wider grocery-locker market rather than the Morrisons trial specifically, but they illustrate why supermarkets are examining automated pickup models as online volumes grow.

For Morrisons, the timing also comes as its digital grocery operation is expanding.

In its September 2026 trading update, the supermarket reported double-digit online sales growth during its third quarter, supported partly by the continued expansion of Morrisons Now and other immediacy services.

Group like-for-like sales increased by 3.2% for the 13 weeks ending 26 July 2026.

That makes the efficiency of fulfilment and collection increasingly relevant. Growing online sales can create more demand for delivery drivers, store pickers, Click & Collect capacity and staff involved in handing completed orders to customers.

The StrongPoint model does not automate the entire grocery order. Morrisons colleagues still need to pick and prepare the shopping and place it into the lockers.

What it changes is the handover stage.

Once an order has been loaded correctly, a standard collection can potentially be completed without a colleague walking out to a customer’s vehicle.

StrongPoint says similar grocery locker technology has been operating in European markets for more than a decade.

Its Morrisons pilot will now provide data on how British shoppers use the service and whether the operational benefits translate effectively to the supermarket’s UK business.

One issue will be how customers respond to collecting several parts of an order from different doors.

A large shop containing ambient, refrigerated and frozen products may require multiple compartments.

The software is designed to allocate all of those compartments to the customer’s collection code, but ease of use will be important if the model is eventually expanded to stores dealing with substantial Click & Collect volumes.

Accessibility and support will also matter. Morrisons’ help function means the concept is not completely unattended even though routine collections are designed to be self-service.

Will Morrisons Bring the Grocery Lockers to London?

There is currently no confirmed announcement of a London rollout.

The supermarket is treating Skipton as a pilot rather than announcing an immediate installation programme across its wider estate.

StrongPoint describes the project as an opportunity to examine customer engagement with automated grocery collection and assess how the technology could support Morrisons’ broader e-commerce strategy.

That means shoppers should be cautious about reports implying that temperature-controlled grocery lockers are already being installed at Morrisons stores nationwide.

There is a separate Morrisons locker expansion taking place across Britain, but that programme relates primarily to parcel collection and returns through the supermarket’s partnership with Quadient.

The businesses announced plans earlier in 2026 to extend those parcel lockers to hundreds of Morrisons supermarkets.

The new StrongPoint system is specifically about Morrisons’ own online grocery orders.

For customers, the Skipton trial will test a relatively simple proposition: whether collecting a weekly supermarket shop can become closer to collecting a parcel while still maintaining the different temperatures required for fresh, frozen and ambient food.

For Morrisons, the test is broader.

If shoppers adopt the system, the retailer will be able to assess whether automated handover can create more collection capacity, extend operating periods and reduce the amount of colleague time required each time a customer arrives.

StrongPoint has described the technology as scalable, but neither company has yet confirmed how many Morrisons locations might receive the grocery lockers if the Skipton pilot proves successful.

The first real-world indication will therefore come from customer behaviour at Skipton.

Local reporting from the launch said shoppers were already beginning to use the lockers following their official opening, which was attended by Skipton Mayor Winston Feather.

Morrisons marked the launch with an event at the store, including free ice creams for the first customers.

For now, the Morrisons temperature-controlled grocery lockers remain a closely watched retail technology trial rather than a nationwide service.

But with online grocery sales continuing to grow and supermarkets looking for ways to make Click & Collect faster and less labour-intensive at the point of handover, the results from Skipton could help determine whether refrigerated and frozen collection lockers become a much more familiar sight outside UK supermarkets.