Farmer’s Fridge: Filling the void between handy and fresh
Chicago Ten years have passed since Farmer’s Fridge in downtown Chicago filled its first automated smart fridge. The company’s chef-curated meals and snacks are now dispensed in more than 600 refrigerators nationwide and are offered in clear, recyclable, and reusable plastic jars. The CEO of Farmer’s Fridge, Luke Saunders, came up with the idea after quitting his sales tour to try to figure out how “fresh food could be as accessible as a candy bar?”
Mr. Saunders has made a number of changes over the last ten years, particularly during the pandemic, as nearly all of the early refrigerator placements were in places that had to close, such offices, schools, and airports. Investing in hospitals and first responder facilities was one of the initial pivots. Next was home delivery, and the business teamed up with merchants for a grab-and-go shelf presence around the same time. By being distributed through Getir delivery and available at stores like Target, Amazon Go, Walgreens, 7-Eleven, and Jewel-Osco, Farmer’s Fridge is currently bridging the gap between fresh food and convenience.
Because “we had more volume we were moving through retail and fridges than we could handle,” Mr. Saunders stated, the company recently ceased offering home delivery services. “We made this strategic choice to increase our retail distribution in markets where we have refrigerators and customers are familiar with our offerings.”
Even though imitations have become more common over the last ten years, Mr. Saunders finds it flattering.He remarked, “Together, we are solving a problem.” “I know how difficult it is to do because I did it first.” The execution is what makes it so difficult.
This is how the company operates. A 150-person crew on a conveyor line in a 37 degree chamber on Chicago’s South Side manually packs meals and snacks. Despite being close to Midway Airport, the factory does not use aeroplanes to convey its perishable goods to Boston, Houston, or Los Angeles. Instead, a portion of the 75 full-time drivers employed by the company begin loading boxed jars into trucks at approximately 6:00 a.m. in preparation for their cross-country journey.
The technology fueling Farmer’s Fridge that functions as a business advantage and safety measure is a predictive algorithm that tracks inventory and individual fridge sales patterns, ensuring each location is stocked to optimize demand and reduce waste.
“The cold chain is monitored end-to-end to ensure peak product freshness,” Mr. Saunders said. “Our proprietary software helps reduce food waste, forecast ingredient needs and accurately schedule restocks.”
In 2022, Farmer’s Fridge was granted its first utility patent for inventory management for, “systems and methods for intelligent inventory management across a network of vending machines.” This, and other technologies developed in-house, enables the company to remotely lock an entire fridge, in the case of an overnight power outage, for example. Or, if there’s a recall on a specific ingredient, the company can just shut down the selling of those specific items in a machine.
“We have the ability to do a remote recall,” Mr. Saunders said. “This came in very handy during the romaine lettuce recall. It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
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The company intentionally keeps its menu at about 25 items to have better control over quality and costs. The menu along with the inventory software, has reduced annual waste to the low single digits, Ms. Saunders said.“Our goal is for zero waste,” he said. “This will be possible through composting and donations.”
Over the past few years, Farmer’s Fridge has donated more than 400,000 meals to support community members in need along with frontline workers throughout the pandemic. Currently the company is partnering with Feeding America to help provide 1.5 million meals to people experiencing food insecurity.