Thursday, March 28, 2019

A Robot Restaurant Touting Freshness & Food Safety



Grocerant niche Ready-2-Eat and Heat-N-Eat fresh prepared continue to drive change in every sector of retail foodservice today according to Steven Johnson, Grocerant Guru® at Tacoma, WA based Foodservice Solutions®. 
Once again technology is driving change in real time with patented technology ‘Sally’ for a robot restaurant. The Salad Station in partnership with a Silicon Valley-based food robotics company, Chowbotics, have created a new point of distribution that is closer to customers, cost less, and elevates both freshness and food safety. Creating new electricity for both brands while driving top line sales and bottom line profits.
Earlier this month Louisiana’s first and only salad robot debuted at North Oaks Medical Center. “By utilizing Sally the Robot’s patented technology, The Salad Station is able to expand its footprint by offering local, seasonal salads beyond its brick-and-mortar locations, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Chowbotics recently announced a similar partnership with French multinational plant-based food company, Bonduelle.
Located just outside the cafeteria and available after-hours, Sally benefits patients, visitors, and more than 2,600 North Oaks Medical Center employees, especially those who work through the night.
Extending the ‘halo’ of better-for-you customers who enjoy building their own creations at The Salad Station can recreate the experience with Sally by crafting custom salads from any combination of up to 22 ingredients. Users can fine-tune the calorie total by adding or subtracting ingredients, as well as view full nutritional details for each recipe.

The robot also features several pre-programmed recipes from The Salad Station including the Strawberry Spinach Salad and the Louisiana Farmer’s Salad. The Salad Station plans to regularly sub-in seasonal ingredients, spicing up staples like spinach and roasted chicken with fruits and vegetables from local farms.
“The Salad Station is built on fresh produce and fast service,” says Scott Henderson, founder and president. “We’re excited to introduce Sally the Robot, a new and innovative way to order Louisiana’s favorite salads.”
This is important; Sally reduces the risk of foodborne illness, as ingredients are kept sanitary and separate. Each of Sally’s ingredients is replenished on a regular basis and contained within the robot, greatly reducing the potential for contamination.
“We’re thrilled to help Scott and the team at The Salad Station expand the availability of their salads beyond the store level,” says Dr. Deepak Sekar, founder and CEO of Chowbotics. “Sally brings nourishment day and night to those visiting or working at North Oaks Medical Center as well as the Hammond community at large.”  How is your brand creating new electricity?  
What partnerships have you formed to drive sales? Where is your brands new electricity? According to Johnson, “Brand relevance is in part driven with innovation in new menu related products in combination with new avenues of distribution all of which are the platform for the new electricity.”
Johnson stated “that in my minds-eye the new electricity must be very efficient for the supply and includes such things as fresh foods, free food / sampling, toy’s, beer, developing brands, unique urban clothing, grocerant positioning, Fresh food messaging, autonomous delivery, cashier-less retail, plates, glasses, cash-less payments, digital hand-held marketing.
All retailers to survive the next generation of retail must embrace the artificial intelligence revolution while simultaneously embracing fresh food that is portable, fresh, with differentiation that is familiar not different
Are you looking for a new partnership to drive sales? Are you ready for some fresh ideations? Do your food marketing ideations look more like yesterday than tomorrow? Interested in learning how www.FoodserviceSolutions.us can edify your retail food brand while creating a platform for consumer convenient meal participationdifferentiation and individualization?  Email us at: Steve@FoodserviceSolutions.us or visit:  www.FoodserviceSolutions.us for more information.

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