Canada's biggest grocery and pharmacy chains are stocking up on cold storage technology, banking that various governments will eventually tap the retail sector for help in rolling out COVID-19 vaccines.

One Cambridge, Ont.-based technology company, BlueRover Inc., said it's working with big-box retailers and pharmacy chains to provide systems that monitor the temperature of vaccine refrigerators and freezers, which need to stay below -70 C for the Pfizer vaccine and -20 C for Moderna. The company's system, which is also available in bags for transporting vaccines, sends alerts when temperatures dip below those levels.