Vending

Healthy aspirations drive entrepreneurial duo to salad vending startup

The need for healthy meals while on the run drove a pair of Silicon Valley executives to launch a healthy vending business in Florida. They overcame setbacks to make their vision a reality.

EnjoyRise offers fresh salad using robotic technology.

February 23, 2022 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

Katie Kennedy and Caroline Pino aren't your typical convenience services entrepreneurs.

Silicon Valley sales executives, the duo never planned to start a service business as they went about their business trips. One problem they always confronted, however, was finding a healthy meal while eating on the run.

Katie Kennedy

"We said there's got to be a better way to get fast food that is healthy and fresh, and more on-demand than is available today," Kennedy told this website in a phone interview. "We were constantly traveling for work. We began this journey initially hoping to solve a problem in the airport."

They began exploring ways to create a solution to this challenge, talking with design firms and equipment manufacturers.

Setbacks come early

It wasn't long before fate interrupted their plans.

Pino was diagnosed with an illness that required hospitalization.

Shortly thereafter, Kennedy gave birth to her second child. Both partners found themselves spending time in the hospital during the COVID pandemic.

Caroline Pino

"Similar scenario (to airports): Limited (food) options in the hospital," Kennedy observed. "After hours, you don't have access really to anything but traditional vending machines, and that's not what we wanted."

They didn't let their personal setbacks deter them.

"We were still trying to figure out how we could build a business together, how we could do something very innovative, so we continued to research and go down that R&D path while she (Pino) was undergoing treatment," Kennedy said. "What we have set out to do is become a restaurant for that (health care) market so that they (hospital employees and patients) can live healthier, more positive lifestyles."

The challenges of managing their own health issues while trying to develop a business were formidable, to be sure, but the partners, both University of Central Florida graduates, brought business management experience.

The technology solution

They put together a business plan for a robotic salad machine — a customized Chowbotics machine featuring digital, interactive nutrition information — that offers freshly prepared, locally sourced, vegan and organic food. The machine dispenses the fresh ingredients from 22 rotating, refrigerated clear canisters.

Salads can have up to six toppings on two bases, starting at $7. There is a $1 per protein charge for grilled chicken breast and diced turkey with fresh herbs. Yogurt, costing $5.99, can be topped with diced apples, berries, granola and grapes.

Kennedy and Pino launched their company, EnjoyRise, slightly more than two years ago using their own funds.

They work out of a "ghost" kitchen that prepares the products daily that go into the machine under the supervision of a dedicated chef.

Salads can have up to six toppings on two bases.

A new kind of restaurant

They see the business as a restaurant.

"You've got the food prep, you've got the server," Kennedy said. "The server's just not your traditional server that's offering you the menu item and taking your order. Instead of the server being an actual person, the server is a virtual dashboard really, where you are creating your order on demand.

"Instead of a server being a representative at the restaurant you're talking to daily, it's interactive through a digital console," she said.

Like a traditional restaurant, the operation, while "virtual," has to adhere to food preparation, sanitation, transportation and technology standards.

Health for a healthcare site

It took them about a year to land their first customer, Aspire Health, an Orlando hospital organization.

Gaining that relationship required a lot of time and mutual trust, Kennedy said.

"We are not strangers to being told 'no.' We both come from sales backgrounds so we're used to people slamming doors in our face, often," she said. "You have to be very resilient making something like this happen."

Kennedy characterized customer response to date at Aspire Health as "very positive." The pair have been surprised by customers' food preferences and ingredient combinations.

While the machine offers an order app, Kennedy said the vast majority of users in the hospital are ordering at the machine.

"They use it (the app) to see what is being served that day," she said.

A labor intensive business

There is an EnjoyRise employee visiting the location almost daily, Pino said, noting that the machine is highly labor intensive.

The menu changes weekly, based on data collected on customer preferences and their own chef's creativity.

Kennedy and Pino plan to have 15 machines this year in three or four customers, focusing on health care and universities.

They are, however, open to other types of customers providing the partnership makes sense.

Gaining clients requires a multi-faceted marketing effort, which includes social media marketing and phone calls to schedule follow-up calls and in-person meetings.

"The key to what we've been able to accomplish is we've built a very, very strong team of people who are very well accomplished in their fields," Pino said. "We're not the experts by any means, but we are experts at building strong teams."

They declined to say how many of their employees are full time.

The key disciplines to succeed in such a specialized business requires the right culture, Pino said.

"I think overall a culture of the organization needs to resonate and project customer service and quality being king," she said. "The quality of the ingredients that we put into our machines are picked for a reason. They're not traditional vending. It's not a bag of chips. There's a lot of thought that goes out into seasonality and procurement of those products. We really care about what we're putting into the bowls and the bellies of our customers."

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