If you didn’t know that salad bars need a disruption, you’re about to find out. I predict that in 10 years, you won’t see a traditional salad bar. You will see robots disguised as vending machines. I discovered them while researching automated technology for an upcoming article.
Right now Chowbotics in Silicon Valley is leading the salad robot revolution, but others will no doubt enter the space. The first Chowbotics Sally salad robot entered the market a year ago, and already there are more than 50 of them out there. In summary, the refrigerated vending-machine-looking unit holds 22 plastic canisters that the operator fills with salad ingredients, including lettuce, proteins, toppings and dressings. From a built-in touchpad, customers select the ingredients they want or choose from a few pre-programmed salads. The canisters spin and drop the ingredients into a pulp container, and the guest pays with a credit card. With no human in sight, one might wonder if the ingredients will quickly run out, or conversely, if the less popular items will sit in there and rot. But smart technology addresses those problems. When an item is about to run out, operators are notified on their phone or computer. When they load ingredients, they fill in a freshness date. For example, three days for lettuce or two days for chicken. Once the fresh limit is reached, the machine locks out the ingredient so guests can’t get it, and the operator is notified.
I see five reasons how and why this will be a salad disruptor.
- Imagine a restaurant, and especially one known to have great salads, contracting with a local hospital, business or university to put one of these robots in its cafeteria with the restaurant logo on the machine. It allows for a satellite location, extending the brand and allowing for extra income. It’s already being done. The Salad Station in Hammond, Louisiana, just placed one in a local hospital.
- Its small 3-foot by 3-foot footprint allows for a “salad bar” in a location that otherwise couldn’t handle a traditional salad bar. Think stadiums, business cafeterias, grocery stores and convenience stores.
- Standing next to candy, chip and beverage vending machines, a salad robot, that looks a lot like a vending machine, brings the possibility of not only something healthy and fresh, but a full meal at that. The operator decides what ingredients go in the machine, so it can include proteins.
- The food safety issues of a standard salad bar are negated. The machine is refrigerated, all the ingredients are encased and there are no utensils subject to dropping to the ground. Those who don’t “do” salad bars for the unattended, open-air nature of the beast would feel comfortable with the robot.
- The cost of a salad from the machine can be less than the price of a packaged salad mix, and consumers these days could appreciate the lack of plastic packaging, lack of distribution carbon footprint and the use of local ingredients.
- Bonus: Labor is not replaced with a robot. If there’s a salad robot in a non-traditional location that otherwise would not have a salad bar, it’s not replacing a worker. It’s giving a worker something to do… because somewhere, someone is prepping the ingredients that go into the machine.
Tell me I’m crazy, but I see this as a game changer. Just watch.
Tell me what you think.
Jody
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