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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

salads

Farmer’s Fridge Expands Outside the Vending Machine and Into Jewel-Osco

Farmer’s Fridge announced this week that its jars of salad are now on sale at Jewel-Osco stores in the Chicago, Illinois area. The news caught my eye because Farmer’s Fridge has up to know been most known for selling those fresh jars of salad through vending machines throughout the Midwest.

But the pandemic hit Farmer’s Fridge hard last year since its machines were set up in high-traffic areas. With fewer people going into offices or traveling, Farmer’s Fridge vending machines sat idle, and in March of last year, the company’s revenue dropped 85 percent. A Farmer’s Fridge company rep told me that as of now, the company has 160 machines active out of the 355 that are installed.

Farmer’s Fridge initially responded to the pandemic by quickly pivoting to home delivery in March of 2020. The company took out PPP loans, raised an additional $40 million in funding (bringing the total amount raised to $75 million) and now ships food nationwide. But since the start of the year, Farmer’s Fridge has been expanding its sales into retail outlets. In January, it started selling salads through Dunkin’ (who knew a trip to Dunkin’ could be healthy?). Then in March, Farmer’s Fridge started selling at 23 Target locations in the Chicago area. And now this week, Farmer’s Fridge salads are available at 18 Jewel-Osco supermarkets in the Chicago area.

The pandemic forced many grocers across the country to shut down salad bars and look for alternatives that didn’t involve trays of food sitting out all day and communal utensils. Some adopted Chowbotics’s Sally robot, which makes customized salads on-demand. But its easy to see how the jars of fresh salad from Farmer’s Fridge could also be used to make up for lost salad bar revenue.

Interest in vending machines has accelerated over the past year, driven in part by the pandemic. Vending machines offer contactless food delivery, don’t require much space and can operate 24 hours a day. But with the success of its home delivery and now growing retail presence, we reached out to Farmer’s Fridge to find out what role vending machines would continue to play for the company. A company rep emailed us the following statement:

Fridges will continue to be a core part of our business, as they currently generate 40 to 50 percent of our revenue. We are experiencing strong growth in retail and delivery, and these additional channels played a critical role in helping us exceed pre-pandemic revenue numbers.

It’s not hard to imagine Farmer’s Fridge vending machines making an even bigger comeback post-pandemic. Airports, offices and colleges will all be looking for ways to create food experiences that don’t involve as much human-to-human interaction. Farmer’s Fridge fits that bill, and now thanks to delivery and retail, has more options than ever should another downturn occur.

Chowbotics Finds Robot-Made Salad Success in Hospitals

Hospitals, by and large, are places that you want to get in and out of quickly. But they are also places that are open 24 hours a day, with staff and visitors working or milling about throughout the night. This type of always-awake environment, it turns out, is the perfect place for Chowbotics‘ food robot, Sally.

Sally is a standalone salad (and bowl food) making robot. There are currently 50 Sally robots deployed around the world, and Chowbotics Founder and CEO, Deepak Sekar told me in a phone interview that the company has found particular success early on in hospitals.

To give you a sense of how Chowbotics defines success, Sekar said that locations that buy or lease a Sally need to sell 7 bowls a day to break even. At a Sally deployment in Las Vegas last month, Sekar reports that Sally was selling 120 bowls a day, and at a new Sally that came online last week at the North Oaks Health Care hospital in Lousiana, Sekar said they were selling 65 to 70 bowls a day.

One of the reasons for the success of Sally’s North Oaks locations is that the hospital’s cafeteria closes down at 2 p.m., so there is no place for staff or visitors to get fresh (as fresh as a hospital cafeteria is, anyway) food later in the afternoon or throughout the night. Sekar said that though there is a definite lunchtime peak in sales, there are sustained sales throughout the afternoon and evening, and another spike at midnight when shifts change, and people on the hunt for something to fresh to eat instead of vending machine food.

Sekar is so high on hospitals right now that they are an area of focus for the company. “Hospitals in general are doing really well, because they are places where people are hanging around at midnight or early in the morning,” said Sekar, “We find robots are a great fit.”

Because Sally is connected, Sekar can also see what types of salads people are creating. Though each Sally comes with standard recipes that you can order (e.g. Roasted Chicken Chopped Salad), Sekar said that 85 percent of bowls served were customized (Romaine lettuce and chicken were the most popular ingredients, edamame and ham the least).

Chowbotics isn’t stopping at salads, however. The company announced last year that it was expanding into bowl foods and is currently rolling out Indian, Mediterranean and Latin menus options in Sally. Cafeterias could become a thing of the past in places like hospitals as high-tech vending operations like Sally, or Cafe X’s robo-barista, and Basil St. Cafe’s hot pizza oven all come online to satisfy cravings any time of day or night.

If you’re curious about Sally, or have a question for Deepak, both robot and human will be live (and, err, plugged in) at our upcoming ArticulATE food robot summit coming up on April 16 in San Francisco! Get your tickets and get a glimpse of our automated future!