Vending

California Pizza Kitchen, Farmer’s Fridge team up to bring iconic salad to vending machines

California Pizza Kitchen’s iconic BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad is debuting in nearly 2,000 Farmer’s Fridge machines, highlighting vending’s role in bringing restaurant brands to grab-and-go.

Photo: Farmer's Fridge

September 26, 2025 by Sandra Carpenter — Editor, Networld Media Group

For more than 40 years, California Pizza Kitchen's BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad has been a menu favorite. Now it is stepping into a new role: a grab-and-go option in Farmer's Fridge machines, part of a growing trend that is bringing restaurant classics into nontraditional retail channels.

The partnership marks the first time California Pizza Kitchen has offered one of its signature salads outside restaurant walls. Nearly 2,000 Farmer's Fridge smart fridges across the United States will now carry the salad, reaching consumers in airports, hospitals, office buildings, college campuses and stadiums.

Expanding reach beyond restaurants

"This salad is a true icon with amazing popularity and lasting power," a spokesperson for California Pizza Kitchen said in an email interview. "It's still a number one seller today and we know the demand among consumers is broader than our ability to reach people through our restaurants alone."

Executives said that demand made the BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad the natural pick for this debut. The company described the launch as part of a larger growth strategy. With frozen pizzas already established in grocery aisles, executives see vending as another way to bring the brand to consumers on the go.

"By having such a strong brand, with demand that exceeds our footprint, it affords us many potential avenues for growing our enterprise," the company spokesperson said. "We're actively pursuing strategies that bring CPK to more consumers through non-traditional and innovative channels and formats that go beyond our restaurant and grocery footprints of today. Offering our salads in the Farmer's Fridge vending ecosystem is a great example of this."

From kitchen to jar

Adapting a dine-in salad to a jarred vending format required close collaboration between the brands.

"Our executive chef and VP of culinary innovation, as well as our procurement and supply chain team, worked shoulder to shoulder with the Farmer's Fridge team to ensure we had the right ingredients, the recipe and the right build to deliver the experience consumers expect and love," a spokesperson for California Pizza Kitchen said. "We were beyond pleased with the collaboration and the end results."

Farmer's Fridge said the composition of the salad worked well with its signature jar design.

"The key is layering the ingredients to keep each component crisp, fresh and vibrant," the company spokesperson said. "Our team also worked closely with Chef Paul Pszybylski, CPK's VP of Culinary Innovation, whose expertise and enthusiasm made the process seamless."

Nostalgia meets convenience

For Farmer's Fridge, the appeal of partnering with a legacy restaurant brand was clear.

"We saw an opportunity to take an iconic salad with 40-plus years of menu history and bring it to a new audience through our network of smart fridges," the company spokesperson said. "We're in an era that celebrates both nostalgia and familiarity. California Pizza Kitchen has been an integral part of American dining for more than four decades and people feel a strong pull toward restaurant brands they know and trust."

Both companies said more collaborations could follow.

"Absolutely. Stay tuned," California Pizza Kitchen's spokesperson said when asked if other menu favorites may appear in vending.

Farmer's Fridge said it also has additional partnerships in development.

"This is the first and we have a handful of other exciting partnerships in the works," the company spokesperson said. "We're looking for partners who share our vision to adapt a signature item into a new format and embrace a creative lens to reach a broader audience through our network of fridges."

About Sandra Carpenter

Sandra is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. She has been working in editorial and research roles for over a decade and has experience in print, blog, social media and peer-reviewed publications.

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