Food from the vending machine

Delivery services have been booming for years, Delivery Hero is one of the German flagship foundations. With Smark, two Stuttgart founders now want to revolutionize food supply in their own way.They Introduce Amazing Food from the vending machine concept.

Food from the vending machine: That is the vision of the Smark founders. (Photo: Ralph Klohs)

Who does not know it: You want to go shopping for the next day quickly in the evening or suddenly have a great desire for chocolate.But the next supermarket is already closed. Philipp Hoening and Max Ittermann (the founders of Smark) created a solution to this problem . They have developed a concept for digital grocery shopping that should make food available quickly and easily without having to go through all the supermarket shelves yourself. It is available 24/7.

The founders have developed automated shopping station. They called smart boxes, where you can order your groceries using a smartphone app or an integrated touchscreen and take them directly with you. After selection, the food is automatically put together within a minute and dispensed in a basket at the station. An automated storage and gripping system should make this possible.So that the purchase is ready for collection immediately. So the promise.

Less food ends up in the trash

The software of the food boxes should also be able to optimize supply and demand for the respective location. Products that are about to expire will be issued first and the correct order quantities will be determined so that fewer foods end up in the garbage. Basically, the Smarkboxes are reminiscent of snack vending machines in train stations. Only that they have a much larger range and that the storage does not have to be checked manually.

So far, the food boxes are only available in the Stuttgart area but that should change soon. The corona pandemic is playing into the cards of the two founders. After all, you can shop at the boxes without having to squeeze into narrow aisles with mouth-nose protection.

More locations are to follow with fresh capital

At the end of June, the startup announced a round of seeds in which they collected an investment worth EUR 3.1 million. Campo and Mutschler Ventures started as investors. Mutschler has previously  invested in Blacklane and McMakler , among others .

We are expanding our team in order to be able to open more smart boxes and at the same time make the shopping experience more and more attractive for the customer. Says founder Ittermann.

The startup was founded in 2016, the first Smarkbox was created in 2017. In the meantime, a team of almost 20 people is behind the plug & play solution for digital food retailing. In the future there will be significantly more.

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Posted by Asif Paracha on July 7, 2020. Filed under Innovation, Articles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.