Belgian grocery giant Colruyt Group and Germany's KION Group have opened a joint R&D center in Antwerp to industrialise the self-driving pallet truck platform the two developed together and now plan to sell across EMEA.
What Colruyt sold, and what stayed at home
Colruyt has transferred 70% of the research activity behind its AXL-iGo self-driving pallet trucks to KION, keeping a 30% minority stake through Smart Innovation NV. The transaction will land roughly EUR 20 million on Colruyt Group's consolidated income statement in the 2026/27 financial year. The Belgian engineering teams stay in place, continuing to build the AI, computer vision and localisation software inside a dedicated warehouse automation stack now controlled by KION.
A production line, not a pilot
The autonomous STILL pallet trucks Colruyt jointly developed with KION brand STILL have been moving loads alongside human warehouse teams in two Colruyt distribution centres since 2023. That deployment record is what convinced KION to bankroll industrialisation: the vehicles navigate around people and obstacles and locate every pallet precisely, freeing employees for higher-value tasks. The new KION Automation Center Antwerp becomes the dedicated hub to scale the technology globally.
Why it matters for EMEA logistics
KION plans to roll the trucks out across EMEA through its intralogistics brands, complementing recent moves such as Honeywell selling Intelligrated to AIP and Inbolt's launch of CAD-to-floor robot programming. The AXL-iGo push adds a retail-hardened AMR line to a portfolio that includes KION brands STILL, Linde and Baoli, with backing from Flanders innovation agency VLAIO.
Reporting based on coverage from Colruyt Group press office, Retail Technology Innovation Hub and RetailDetail EU.