Hy-Vee to install cart sanitation machines at more than 200 stores

Two Hy-Vee stores in the Cedar Rapids area will be among the 200-plus in the Midwest to implement an automatic cart sanitation system by mid-November 'at the earliest,” Hy-Vee spokeswoman Dawn Buzynski told The Gazette Tuesday.

The Marion Hy-Vee and the Cedar Rapids Hy-Vee on Wilson Avenue are scheduled to be the first in the Corridor to receive the technology, Buzynski said.

The four-by-six-foot-system, Sterile Cart, uses a 'a low-pressure spray system and a dry-in-place disinfectant” to sanitize carts quickly as they go through the box, according to a news release.

Kristin Davidson, president of Sterile Cart's distributor, Mound, Minn.-based Ultra Green Packaging, said the system can clean one to two carts per second.

'The Sterile Cart system uses a hospital-grade disinfectant that is proven to kill 99.9 percent of germs and viruses that cause illnesses, including coronavirus,” Davidson said in the statement.

The West Des Moines-based grocer has been manually sanitizing carts 'regularly” on any given day. Once Sterile Cart is in place, that no longer will be necessary.

'Since the beginning of the pandemic, it has been our desire to put Hy-Vee customers' minds at ease with thorough sanitization measures,” Randy Edeker, chairman, CEO and president of the retail chain, said in the statement.

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