A venerable part of the retail landscape, vending machines have seen a surge in innovation in recent years, adding smartphone ordering and a range of made-to-order, prepared food and drink options. Going forward, the line between “advanced vending machine” and “automated restaurant” will blur further, creating opportunities for new business models and paths to reaching consumers.
This report comes in PPT.
As smartphones become the primary driver of order volumes and a growing portion of those orders are for prepared meals consumed off-premise, all outlets increasingly become “meal fulfilment centres”, highly automated, with more emphasis than ever on speed and volume.
Whilst there is still a limited range of prepared meals which lend themselves to completely unmanned vending, this overlaps with steady improvements in restaurant automation. The day is fast approaching when rapid-scaling restaurant chains featuring prefabricated, highly-automated, modular restaurant “cubes” are a reality.
For customers, more of the relationship with a brand will be mediated via the smartphone app and the various pick-up and delivery “boxes” in the area, in which vending will play a key role.
A dense network of small, highly capable automated kitchens/vending machines could also serve as engines of product development, allowing for the launch of new product and product combinations in key high-traffic, high-visibility areas such as universities, airports, travel hubs, and elsewhere.
Consumer foodservice is composed of cafés/bars, full-service restaurants, limited-service restaurants, self-service cafeterias and street stalls/kiosks.
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