What is the next restaurant disruptor? What meal-acquiring platform will customers have an appetite for since ghost and virtual kitchens that were unarguably helped along by delivery?
I believe vending machines are on the cusp of business opportunity and consumer acceptance. I see it as more than a chance for restaurants to create an extra income stream. It’s a chance to champion convenience and technology while riding high on the free publicity it will generate while it catches steam in the US. Vending machines and their iterations will be found on busy street sides, in apartment buildings and offices, at the gym and at entertainment events, for starters.
The entry level is low. For instance, once a day, independent-operator Jones Bar-B-Q in Kansas City, Kan., stocks a vending machine outside the building filled with the restaurant’s sandwiches, beans and more. Owner Deborah Thompson told me the machine is especially popular among those working the night shift in the near-by industrial district. Workers only have a half hour to eat and often run over to the vending machine for a sandwich when the restaurant is closed.
More buzzworthy, consider a vending machine that actually cooks the food—combining vending with robotics. It’s already underway. Piestro, which launched a year ago and is still in testing, makes pizza in under 3 minutes viewable through the unit’s window. It’s not technically called a vending machine, but it could be. Just get the right people behind a concept like that, and it could take off. Piestro’s founder is Massimo Noja De Marco, who was co-founder of Kitchen United. He knows something about how to start things. The vending machine (currently only called robotics) is completely temperature controlled and combines ordering and payment simplicity.
We could look to Japan for a world of know-how. The country has more than 5 million vending machines. In some cases, target marketing happens as cameras detect the demographic standing before the machine. It then suggests what the guest might like to order on the touchscreen display panel.
Entrepreneurship is already at work allowing operators to enter the space while focusing solely on preparing the meals. Boston-based Alchemista places food lockers in luxury apartment buildings throughout Boston while partnering with a few high-end restaurants that want to get their food out to the masses. Rather than call it a vending machine, Alchemista calls its units on-demand modular marketplaces. Alchemista reps go pick up the meals to place in the temperature-controlled lockers throughout the city. The locker menu is available via QR code with payment also accomplished via the smartphone.
Just these examples show that vending machine opportunities and iterations could be endless, extending profitability beyond the restaurant—and perhaps in lieu of a restaurant. How about ghost-kitchen vending machines? Consumers are now conditioned to get food unconventionally. Consumers will easily make the mental shift from vending machine candy bars and soft drinks to craveable, sensible meals. We could be on the cusp of something.
Tell me what you think.
Jody
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