Meet Tally, the robot taking inventory at this Kansas City area Hy-Vee store

Shoppers at a Lee’s Summit Hy-Vee may notice something unusual heading down the aisles: a robot named Tally.

Hy-Vee, based in Iowa, started testing shelf-scanning robots in a couple of its grocery stores in September and it is now in five locations including the one at 301 N.E. Rice Road.

Tally scans tens of thousands of products across the grocery, health and wellness aisles to make sure products are in stock and in the right location. If it finds a hole on a shelf, it alerts the store via email.

It can reduce out-of-stocks as much as 30%, Hy-Vee said, while allowing employees to service customers.

“If I can get an item from our back room onto the sales floor that our customers are looking for faster than before, that’s our main focus right now,” said Kory Robinson, store director.

It travels the Lee’s Summit Hy-Vee store three times a day.

Simbe Robotics’ Tally robots also are in two Hy-Vee stores in Iowa and two in Nebraska.

Hy-Vee has more than 280 stores in eight Midwestern states and sales of $11 billion annually.