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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Sally

Kellogg’s Bowl Bot Cereal Robot, Based on Chowbotics Tech, Debuts at Two Universities

Kellogg’s Away From Home, a division of the CPG giant that works with foodservice operators, announced a joint pilot program with Chowbotics (now a division of DoorDash) that just debuted cereal dispensing robots at two universities. The aptly named Kellogg’s Bowl Bot will dispense a variety of Kellogg’s brand cereals as well as different milks, fruits, yogurts and more.

According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the Kellogg’s Bowl Bots are now available at Florida State University and the Univeristy of Wisconsin-Madison (which also uses Starship delivery robots!). The Kellogg’s Bowl Bot is basically a re-purposed and re-branded Chowbotics Sally robotic vending machine, which started out as a salad-making robot but has since expanded its capabilities to include other types of parfaits and bowl foods.

We’ve known about Chowbotics’ CPG ambitions since last year, when the company told us it wanted to partner with cereal companies specifically. At the time, the cereal bot use case was more about offering free samples at a grocery store, but branding and placing these machines at colleges makes a lot of sense. For one, colleges have long been a target location for Chowbotics. Prior to the pandemic, it had rolled out Sallys to a number of colleges and universities across the country. Second, the Kellogg’s Bowl Bot is perfect for our pandemic times since it doesn’t require human-to-human interaction and all of the ingredients are store inside closed containers that are themselves stored within the machine.

On top of all that, while my college days are long behind me, I assume cereal remains popular with this younger generation (when they aren’t eating avocado toast).

The Kellogg’s Bowl Bot has a special menu programmed for students that includes:

  • About Last Night with Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes, Kellogg’s Froot Loops, Kellogg’s KraveTM Chocolate, chocolate drops, banana chips, and espresso syrup
  • Hawaii 5-0 with Frosted Mini-Wheats, Bear Naked Fit Triple Berry Granola, pineapple, coconut, and mango
  • Valentine’s Day Vibes with Special K Red Berries Cereal, cocoa nibs, blueberries, strawberries, and whole milk

Or students can create their own custom bowl mixing and matching cereals, milks, nuts, seeds, fruits and more. Prices start at $2.99 and go up to $6.50, depending on selection. Students can even use their campus meal plans to purchase their bowl.

For those interested in checking out the new Kellogg’s Bowl Bots, the one at FSU is located in 1851, an on-campus dining facility and convenience store, and the robot at UW-Madison is situated on Dejope Residence Hall’s main floor, outside The Bean & Creamery.

Video: Chowbotics’ Sally Makes Salads at Coborn’s Marketplace

As you are well aware, the way we get our food has undergone dramatic changes during this pandemic.

One of the more visible changes we’ve seen is the removal of buffet-style services like salad bars in grocery stores. The thought of trays of lettuce and mushrooms and bacon bits just sitting in the open for lots of people to pick through (and worse) is no longer appetizing, to say the least.

What is slowly starting to replace some of those grocery salad bars is robots. Specifically Chowbotics’ Sally robot. The company recently signed a licensing deal with Saladworks , which will put Sallys in grocery stores. And just last month Chowbotics introduced new features that enabled contactless ordering, as well as a video screen that displays dynamic video advertising, which will make its robot more attractive to potential retailers.

Thanks to a promotional video from Apex Commercial Kitchen posted to Linkedin (see below), we can now take a look at what Chowbotics robots look like in the grocery store. Yes, this video is a little commerical-y and doesn’t provide much detail, but it shows what Sallys look like in the real world, and oh yeah, also is a bit of an announcement that Sallys are being deployed to at least one Coborn’s market.

During different conversations with the company throughout the year, Chowbotics has told us that it has seen increased interest from grocery retailers looking to replace their salad bars. We’re starting to see that interest turn into actual installations. In addition to Sally at the supermarket, Blendid’s smoothie-making robot recently debuted at a Walmart in Fremont, CA.

As retailers (and shoppers) still deal with the ongoing ramifications of the pandemic, we can expect to see more robot deals like Chowbotics and Blendid in the coming months. For more on the automated vending space, check out The Great Vending Reinvention: The Spoon’s Smart Vending Machine Market Report I did for Spoon Plus earlier this year.

Chowbotics Adds Contactless Features and New Menu Items to Its Salad Robot

In this time of COVID, vending machines are fast becoming a great option for contactless meals. Well, mostly contactless. While the machines are using advanced robotics to make high-end food, many still require users to touch the same screen to place their order — a no-no in today’s hyper hygienic world.

When I talked with Chowbotics for The Great Vending Reinvention: The Spoon’s Smart Vending Machine Market Report earlier this year, the company knew that this limitation was an issue and was fast-tracking a solution, which is finally here.

Yesterday, Chowbotics announced some new features for its fresh food robot, Sally. Included in the updates are contactless ordering, new menu items and dynamic video advertising, according to an email sent to The Spoon.

Sally’s new contactless ordering feature lets consumers order their meals ahead of time through a new, proprietary app. Customers place their order through the app with their nearest Sally. Upon arrival at the machine, a special QR code generate by the app is scanned and the meal is made and dispensed. (The press release did not mention any new contactless payment features.)

Chowbotics also continues to expand Sally’s menu beyond salads with new options. The company today also announced that has added new chef-designed meal items including Thai noodle salad, Poke, and even a smoked brisket bowl.

Finally, Chowbotics also added new video screen to its robot, which means that operators can insert dynamic ads depending on what they want to promote. For example, the screen could display breakfast bowls in the morning and a BBQ bowl in the evening.

Since the pandemic has forced the closure of buffet-style food options like salad bars, Chowbotics and other vending companies have reporting an uptick in interest from grocery retailers. With expanded menu options, the ability to make meals around the clock and custom upsell and marketing messages throughout the day, retailers may not want to go back to staid salad bars.

UPDATE: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the video advertising would be on the touchscreen.

Chowbotics Deploying 50 New Salad Making Robots to Hospitals Across the Country

Chowbotics announced today that it is deploying 50 new salad making robots to hospitals across the country. The company said that by the end of June, it will have a total of 70 Sally robots in hospitals in the U.S. and Europe, up from 16 at the beginning of February.

The coronavirus pandemic has thrust Chowbotics into a unique position, especially when it comes to feeding healthcare workers. Doctors and nurses are working around the clock and need access to fresh food, and Sally, which can make yogurt, grain and salad bowls, can serve a variety of meals for every daypart , 24 hours a day.

Additionally, open salad bars are being removed from cafeterias, restaurants and grocery stores out of concern that they can spread the coronavirus. So finding and selling a salad will get more complicated. Sally’s 22 ingredients are stored in airtight containers that are held within the robot, providing an added layer of protection from outside contamination.

It’s not a good thing that hospitals represent such a big opportunity for Chowbotics and other robotic vending services right now. The fact that hospitals are busy illustrate a sad and deadly fact about the COVID-19. From a strictly cold, business standpoint, Chowbotics’ ability to sell into the healthcare market right now comes at the same time when colleges, the company’s other big customer segment, have shut down, eliminating those lines of business.

With their ability to reduce human-to-human contact, and inability to actually get sick during this pandemic, robots are starting to play a larger role in our meal journey. Robots like Sally are making meals, while delivery robots like those from Starship and Refraction are bringing meals to our doorsteps. As the effect coronavirus has on social distancing continues to ripple long after the virus has receded, we will be interacting with more robots in our day-to-day lives.

Chowbotics Rolls Out New Sally 2.0 Robot Salad Maker

Chowbotics announced the release of its new Sally 2.0 robot salad making machine today. According to a press release sent to The Spoon, the new machine features a larger tablet display and user interface, wheels for more mobility, and new breakfast menu as well as snack items like açai and yogurt bowls.

As part of today’s announcement, Salad Station, the southern fast casual restaurant chain that already has 11 Sallies in operation, said it would roll out 50 Salad Station-branded Sallies across seven states, though no timeline for that expansion was given.

2019 has been a pretty big year for Chowbotics. In January, the company announced a partnership with French vegetable company Bonduelle to bring Sally robots to Europe. In March Chowbotics shared sales data showing that hospitals were becoming a lucrative location for its robots, selling up to 120 salads a day (at the time Chowbotics said locations only need to sell 7 bowls a day to break even). In August Sally robots were sent off to a number of colleges across North America including Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH; College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA; and the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. And then earlier this month, the company named Rick Wilmer as its new CEO as Founder Deepak Sekar moved to become president and head of technology, product and strategic partnerships for Chowbotics.

Sally is part of a larger cohort of food robotics companies that are quietly revolutionizing the concept of what vending machines can be. Briggo is putting its robot-barista in its first Whole Foods, and Yo-Kai Express is set to debut a new iteration of its machine that has two hot ramen dispensers so there isn’t as much wait time. These and other standalone food robots are perfect for busy locations like colleges and hospitals because they can serve fresh food around the clock without the need for staff.

As companies like Chowbotics continue to improve their robots, 2020 is shaping up to be a year where automated food literally levels up from 1.0 to 2.0.

Chowbotics Gets a New CEO as Founder Moves to President Role

Chowbotics, maker of Sally the salad making robot, announced yesterday that Rick Wilmer will be the company’s new CEO (hat tip to FE&S magazine). Founder and former CEO Deepak Sekar will assume the role of president and be responsible for technology, products and strategic partnerships.

Wilmer’s 30 plus year professional background is not in food, but rather in more hardcore technology. Previously he was CEO of Mojo Networks, which he led to an acquisition by Arista Networks, and prior to that he was CEO of Pliant, which he led to an acquisition by SanDisk for $327 million.

This is the second bit of CEO shuffling we’ve reported on this week here at The Spoon. On Tuesday, we revealed and Dave Zito was no longer CEO or with Miso Robotics, the startup behind Flippy, the burger making robot. Though we still don’t know the reasons behind Zito’s departure.

A former boss of mine was fond of saying that there are two types of CEOs: builders and scalers. Builders know how to get the product and company off the ground, and scalers know how to guide the company through its next levels of enterprise level growth.

With this chestnut in mind, Chowbotics’ CEO replacement is probably not the last bit of executive shuffling we’ll see in the near term at a food robotics company, and that’s a good thing. It shows that the industry is maturing beyond the building-a-startup stage and into the scaling-a-business stage.

Sekar stepping down comes following a year where Chowbotics’ Sally has been expanding into Europe, finding success in hospitals, and even going off to multiple colleges. But its early mover advantage in the standalone food robot space is quickly evaporating as a new wave of automated food kiosks come to market. Farmer’s Fridge and Fresh Bowl are fresh salad machines coming to market, while high-end vending machines like like Yo-Kai Express and Basil Street Express offer fully cooked meals like ramen and pizza. All of these player will be fighting for prime square footage to feed hungry students, airline passengers and office workers.

Chowbotics will need to scale in order to tip the scales in its favor.

Chowbotics is Sending Sally the Salad Making Robot Off to College(s)

Chowbotics is packing up Sally the salad making robot and sending it off to college. Well, many colleges actually, as the food robotics startup is set to announce next week a bigger push into the higher education market.

Chowbotics told us that this school year, students at multiple colleges and universities in the U.S. will be able to buy salads and breakfast bowls from Sally the robot. Those schools include: Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH; College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA; the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada; Elmira College in Elmira, NY; the University of Memphis in Memphis, TN; and Wichita State University in Wichita, KS. These schools join Marshall University in Huntington, WV, which installed Sally in 2018.

Students can order from thousands of different custom and pre-made meals Sally can make from the 22 ingredients it stores. Sally will work with campus meal plans and accept credit cards for payment, but unlike the school cafeteria or on-campus restaurants, Sally can fit in the corner of a dorm lobby and feed people 24 hours a day.

Sally is part of two big trends we at The Spoon see accelerating. First it’s emblematic of the golden age of vending machines that we are entering. Advances in robotics and other technologies means that automated vending machines are no longer relegated to sodas and Snickers bars. Machines like Sally and Yo-Kai Express can whip up complex, high-end meals in just minutes and around the clock in high-traffic locations like colleges, hospitals and airports.

But Sally is also part of a bigger wave of robots heading off to college. In addition to the stationary Sally, delivery robots from Starship and Kiwi are rolling around more campuses delivering restaurant made meals to the student masses.

The bottom line is that eating at college is not only vastly different from when I went to school (long ago) — but pretty soon, it will also be a lot different from how people ate at college last year.

Chowbotics to Bring its Salad Making Robot to Europe

Chowbotics will be bringing a version of its salad making robot to Europe, courtesy of a new partnership with French vegetable company Bonduelle.

While here in the U.S. Chowbotics‘ ‘bot is named “Sally,” the forthcoming French version will go by “Cabaletta.” From the press release:

Like Sally the Robot, Cabaletta can operate 24/7 and will offer custom salads from any combination of 20 ingredients selected by Bonduelle, in addition to chef-crafted, pre-programmed recipes. Users can also fine-tune the calorie total by adding or subtracting ingredients, as well as view full nutritional details for each recipe. The robot’s proprietary technology reduces the risk of foodborne illness, as ingredients are kept sanitary and separate.

The agreement calls for Cabalettas to be deployed across mainland Europe, but the first robots will be installed in several offices and businesses around Lille, France. Though the partnership will kick off with salad robots, Chowbotics raised $11 million last year to fuel expansion into robot-made food bowls with ingredients like grains, yogurt and even poke, so perhaps we’ll see some of those put into circulation as well.

Robots are beginning to take hold around Europe. Based out of Belgium, Alberts is rolling out its Albert smoothie-making robot. Elsewhere in France, Ekim is building its tiny pizza-making robot restaurants. And over in Moscow, MontyCafe‘s robot arm is serving up coffee.

We’ll be sure to ask Chowbotics CEO Deepak Sekar about his company’s European strategy at our upcoming Articulate conference on April 16th in San Francisco. He’s among the many luminary speakers we’ll be chatting with about all things food robot and automation. You can be a part of the conversation too, get your ticket today!

Want a Tricolor Crepe? This Robot From Japan Can Make You One

This week, I had a chance to visit wine country to check out what the world of fine dining is thinking about things like food robots. I was down in Napa Valley at the reThink Food conference, where I spent three days talking to chefs, restaurateurs and food execs about how tech will change the culinary world.

Near the end of the conference, I caught up with some familiar faces (or maybe I should say buttons and batter dispensers) to see the latest capabilities of some of my favorite food robots.

The bot I was most excited to see was the Morirobo. The crepe making robot first debuted in the US at the 2017 Smart Kitchen Summit, so it was good to see Morirobo (and its inventor and namesake, Hirofumi Mori) back stateside to show off its new multicolor crepe making capability.

As is almost always the case with robots, it’s better to show than tell, so here’s a video of the Morirobo making a large tri-colored crepe:

Morirobo shows off crepe robot making tricolor crepes

World-changing? Maybe not, but I have to say a gigantic multicolored crepe is a crowd pleaser. I can already see the lines forming at fairs and festivals across the US (or even in hotel lobbies as the cool new replacement for that breakfast bar waffle maker) for giant multicolored crepes.

Then there was the latest version of Sally the Salad Robot from Chowbotics. I caught a video of Carnegie Mellon professor of robotics (and inventor of crazy snake monster robots) Howie Choset ordering a salad from Sally:

Sally the salad robot @ reThink Food

After years of development, Sally finally started selling to customers in January of this year. Since its release, Sally has updated software that enables it to make non-salad food like grain bowls, yogurt bowls and more. That’s good news for Sally owners since more meals per day means recouping the foodbot’s $30 thousand price tag much faster.

Since going on sale, there are currently about 40 or so Sallies in the wild. According to a company representative, while corporate cafeterias are the most common location for a Sally, universities (two at Stanford) and airports (Buffalo airport in NY) are other places you can now get a salad (or yogurt bowl) from Sally.

The Robots Are Coming, And They’re Bringing Salads

The restaurant salad bar is often a mixed bag – sometimes it’s great, other times the ingredients are sad, with wilted lettuce and less-than-fresh cucumbers side-by-side. And sometimes the salad options at traditionally fast food chains are just downright sad.

That’s where Sally comes in. She’s the robot from Chowbotics Inc., a robotics and AI company that’s creating perfectly portioned salads and positioned as an alternative to the casual dining salad restaurants. Chowbotics, formerly known as Casabots, has  raised $6.3 million in funding from notable venture capital sources as Techstars and Foundry, the company behind Fitbit and 3D printers.

Sally takes up minimal space (about the size of a dorm room refrigerator) and uses 21 popular salad ingredients like romaine, kale, seared chicken breast, Parmesan, California walnuts, cherry tomatoes, and Kalamata olives that will create thousands of salad combinations in a mere 60 seconds.

In many ways, Sally is like a 3D printer for salads, spewing out prepared ingredients to create a ready to eat dish. In case you’re worried about Sally just being another automation nail in the food service coffin, you’ll be glad to know that Sally actually requires human interaction to do her job. Workers as the restaurant, airport or hotel will have to chop and wash the vegetables before putting them into the machine – at least for now.

“Sally is the next generation of salad restaurant,” said Deepak Sekar, founder of Chowbotics. “For one thing, a robot can make salad faster than a human can. Also, you will know precisely how many calories your salad is delivering; there won’t be the problem of consuming one piled high with garnishes that turn out to be more fattening than a burger.”

Sally is making her debut in a fast-casual restaurant in Silicon Valley and at a corporate cafeteria in Texas, with the public launch slated for April 13 at co-working space Galvanize in San Francisco. The robot was designed as a solution for hospitality settings, convention centers, airports and gyms where customers want healthy quick service options, as well as an option to install in fast food chains to bolster their fresh food options.

Automation in front of house restaurant operations is a growing trend, as Michael Wolf wrote in The Spoon back in January, with a focus on how fast food companies are adapting. “Companies like Panera, Wendy’s and McDonalds are rolling out self-order kiosks nationwide, making fast food one of the fastest growing categories in what some predict will be a $73 billion self-serve kiosk market in 2020.”

Sekar, for his part, isn’t concerned about the effect Sally and other food preparation robots like her will have on the restaurant industry. “It’s happening in every industry now. You can either fight it, or be on the team that makes it happen.”