INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Fast, healthy food is one of those concepts that just seems too good to be true
But Farmer Fridge, a Chicago-based startup that recently closed a $30 million Series C round led by former Google CEO Eric Schmidt
Innovation Endeavors, aims to make that a reality.Farmer Fridge retrofits vending machines to serve up healthy foods — salads, sandwiches,
— for people on the go, for anywhere from $5 to about $8
In order to ensure restaurant-quality food, Farmer Fridge has a chef on board who receives feedback from customers to constantly tweak the
There also a large workforce in place to restock the food, which is prepared daily in Farmer Fridge kitchen, every morning
I tried the food while I was in Chicago, and I must admit that it was good
And this is coming from someone who generally dislikes salad.While the amount of waste is low (about 5 percent left over) — thanks to its
allocation algorithm that determines how much of each type of food to stock in each vending machine location — Farmer Fridge has a system
in place to deliver leftover food to the Greater Chicago Food Depository, a food bank that works in partnership with 700 agencies, including
soup kitchens, shelters and pantries.&The hypothesis for the business is that it been done for ATMs, it been done for movies, and those
things have nothing to do with each other
So the only connection would be that consumers generally want things that are faster and cheaper and more convenient, as long as they don&t
have to sacrifice any quality from the experience,& Farmer Fridge founder and CEO Luke Saunders told me at the startup headquarters in
Chicago.Farmer Fridge founder and CEO Luke Saunders at the startup Chicago-based HQ&So, renting a movie from a kiosk — there no
&It the same movie when you get home
With food, though, it was interesting because there a lot of businesses where the experience is supposedly the most important part, so ‘if
you have really good service at a restaurant, could technology actually replace that experience& was the core question of the business
Or is that an important sustained advantage for a restaurant versus our business model&So far, it been working
Since launching in2013,Farmer Fridge has deployed 200 vending machines throughout Chicago and Milwaukee
Farmer Fridge vending machines can be found in airports, hospitals and in traditional retailers, like pharmacies, convenience stores and
even the Amazon Go store in Chicago.Each location gets stocked at least five days a week, while the airport gets stocked seven days a
week.Depending on the business partner, Farmer Fridge has a revenue model that ranges from subsidized accounts to revenue shares.&Each
vertical behaves really differently,& Saunders said
&In a hospital, they care more about having an amenity overnight for employees who don&t have access to a cafeteria than they do about
At O&Hare International Airport, it a revenue share because of the traffic generated
For some retailers, it about the traffic Farmer Fridge brings to those places.&The app is probably the least technologically interesting
part about Farmer Fridge, but what it offers is an easy way to see where you can find a fridge, the inventory of said fridge and the ability
to reserve food from that fridge ahead of time.The fridge itself is the real technological achievement
It an internet-connected device that runs firmware and features a graphical user interface and cloud infrastructure.Next year, the plan is
to expand regionally and launch in an additional region
In the nearer term, Farmer Fridge is expecting to grow from 130 employees today to about 200 by the end of next year.
