RaceTrac cleans floors with robotic scrubbers

A regional Southeastern convenience chain is using robots to automate the repetitive task of floor cleaning.

RaceTrac is deploying autonomous floor scrubbers from ICE Cobotics in its travel center store locations. The Cobi 18 robots are designed to clean 5,000 to 7,000 square feet of floor space per hour and can be deployed multiple times per day to clean floors.

The subscription-based robots are designed for small spaces and to navigate tight aisles and around moving and stationary objects. They can navigate next to glass and windows and detect when cooler doors are open. 

With the rollout, RaceTrac said it intends to support store associates by taking on the repetitive task of floor cleaning, reducing physical strain on staff and freeing up their time so they can focus on other critical cleaning tasks and assist customers.

“Leveraging innovation is a key component of RaceTrac’s mission to make people’s lives simpler and more enjoyable” said Mark Reese, VP of operations, maintenance and store support at RaceTrac. “Implementing Cobi in our Travel Center store locations allows us to put our people first while increasing the overall cleanliness of stores. Leveraging technology to provide cleaner stores and free up our team members to assist guests in finding ‘whatever gets them going,’ is just another step RaceTrac is excited to take to make sure that every visit is a great experience.”  

RaceTrac is not the only convenience retailer to utilize ICE Cobotics Cobi 18 robots to automate previously manual floor cleaning tasks. Iowa-based, family-owned convenience store chain Kum & Go, as well as convenience/fuel chain Phillips 66, are utilizing the autonomous floor scrubbers in select store locations.

“We are excited to see the ease with which RaceTrac is implementing Cobi 18 across their locations and the immediate benefits they are seeing including access to confirmed clean data, increased cleaning consistency and efficiency, and hassle-free service through ICE Cobotics’ all-inclusive subscription” said Chris Wetmore, Vice President Sales at ICE Cobotics. “With this deployment, Cobi is quickly becoming the market leader for autonomous solutions in the C-store space.” 

Read more: RaceTrac making largest acquisition in its history: Gulf Oil LLC]

Headquartered in Atlanta, family-owned RaceTrac operates over 570 convenience store locations in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and Tennessee.