The first Wakefern Food Corp. supermarkets are live on the Helium Network HNT$0.367+2.4%, carrying mobile carriers' traffic over the stores' existing Wi-Fi, according to a blog post Helium published on 8 October 2026. Wakefern is the cooperative behind ShopRite, Price Rite Marketplace, The Fresh Grocer, Fairway Market and Gourmet Garage. The announcement is Helium's alone: we could not find a statement from Wakefern or from SignaConnect, the managed service provider Helium says designed and manages the deployment.
What Helium says about Wakefern's stores
Helium describes Wakefern as the largest retailer-owned cooperative in the United States, with 48 member companies operating about 365 supermarkets across nine states from Maryland to New Hampshire, and calls it a $20.7 billion business founded in 1946. Those figures describe the whole cooperative. On the deployment itself, Helium says only that Wakefern is beginning to convert its store Wi-Fi, that the first stores are live, and that more locations will follow. Helium repeated the claim on X on 9 October 2026.
How Passpoint Wi-Fi offload works in a supermarket
Wi-Fi offload moves a carrier's subscribers onto a building's Wi-Fi while they are indoors, so the phone keeps working where cell signal is weak. Helium's post says the Wakefern deployment uses Passpoint, a standard built into modern phones that makes the switch automatic and secure, with no app, sign-in or splash page. A shopper's phone connects on the way in and hands back to cellular on the way out.
Helium's argument for groceries is about cost. Concrete walls, steel racking and refrigeration cases weaken coverage, and the usual fix for a large venue is a distributed antenna system, a dedicated set of indoor cellular antennas that Helium says is expensive to install and maintain. Wakefern's stores already run enterprise Wi-Fi.
How venues earn HNT or dollars from carrier traffic
Helium says Wakefern's stores earn more as more carrier traffic moves onto their Wi-Fi. In general, carriers pay Helium owner Nova Labs a per-gigabyte rate for offload, and enterprises hosting access points earn either HNT, Helium's token on Solana, or US dollars for the traffic they carry, Light Reading reported on 2 September 2026. Helium has not said which applies to Wakefern.
Wakefern's stores join a network that Helium puts at more than 45,000 locations serving over 1.4 million people a day. Helium's earlier venue disclosures came with traffic figures: a 23-hospital health system that Helium said moved 145 TB in a week, and 2,485 restaurant locations across 34 chains. The Wakefern post gives a well-known name and no volumes.
Store count, carriers and terms are not disclosed
Helium's post leaves out most of what would show the size of the deployment:
- how many Wakefern stores are live, and which banners or states they are in
- which carriers' subscribers the stores' Wi-Fi serves
- how much traffic the stores carry, what they earn and the commercial terms between Wakefern, SignaConnect and Helium
- when further locations are due
- whether Wakefern signed up centrally or its member companies opt in one by one
Until Wakefern, SignaConnect or Helium publishes those details, what Helium has announced is a named retail cooperative with an unstated number of stores on its network.
