Technology created by a Stockholm-based startup to run self-service grocery stores remotely is helping rural communities in Sweden, and the idea is catching on elsewhere as well, as smartphones make possible things we didn’t even imagine a few decades ago.

Daniel Lundh launched Storekey and Lifvs in 2018 because he saw a gap in the market. Many rural communities had lost their grocery stores in the 1990s when large supermarket chains arrived, creating ‘food deserts’ in remote areas. In 1985, there were 8,500 supermarkets in Sweden. By 2010 there were fewer than 3,500.