SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Ingles Market has embarked on a major network upgrade that will modernize its operations and, in some locations, enable new services like contactless ordering and curbside pick-up.

The retailer, which operates nearly 200 stores across six Southeastern states, is working with Aruba, on the upgrade, according to the technology company, which is a unit of Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

“We initially built our network to support limited wireless devices and didn’t anticipate some of the changes that our business would encounter,” said Marty Riedling, director of systems engineering for Ingles Markets. “With an increase in wireless IoT devices being used throughout our stores for inventory ordering and management, meat, deli and produce scales, and digital signage, it became clear that we had to build a more forward-looking foundation.”

Along with increased demand inside its stores, Ingles also faced the challenge of ensuring that its network could support such contactless ordering and curbside pick-up for customers who wanted to avoid shopping inside stores. According to Gartner, by 2024, 80% of ordering and replenishment will be touchless for most organizations, so retail and grocery stores like Ingles are wise to begin enabling these capabilities now, if they haven’t already.

Ingles began an upgrade and replacement of its Cisco infrastructure two years ago, swapping out Cisco access points (APs) with Aruba’s in its stores. Aruba says its new generation of Wi-Fi 6 APs work with the older models Ingles already has, so that upgrading the network was simpler and more cost-effective than it would have been with vendors that take a “rip and replace” approach to upgrades.

So far Ingles has updated 10 of its 200 stores, keeping inventory systems online, enabling quick price updates for the stores’ meat, deli and produce scales, and ensuring that any additional IoT devices can be accommodated on the network without any sacrifice in performance.

“Modernizing our network is crucial to addressing the in-store deluge of devices, and applications necessary for our day-to-day operations,” Riedling said.

The network overhaul has also allowed Ingles to address curbside pick-up in an efficient and cost-effective way. To facilitate its “click and collect” fulfillment process, Ingles’ handheld devices such as the Zebra scanners they use for ordering and fulfillment must have reliable and continuous connectivity to keep curbside service running. With the additional performance and coverage afforded by its upgraded Aruba network – coupled with the fact that Aruba and Zebra are strategic partners so their solutions work seamlessly together – Ingles is now providing curbside service in four of its stores and expects to bring more stores online rapidly, given the strong demand.

Said Riedling, “It’s clear that our stores need to continue evolving to meet the changing needs of our customers. With our upgraded Aruba network in place, we feel confident that we can address these future needs and tackle the challenges that come our way.”