How To Start An On Campus Food Delivery Service

Where the foodservice industry's labor shortages and students' calls for convenience meet, operators are virtually to discover delivery—including past robot. For the college and university sector, it'south already arrived. George Stonemason University launched a fleet of autonomous delivery vehicles in January, followed by Northern Arizona University (NAU) in March. The six-wheeled boxes scoot around both campuses, and can be unlocked by phone app.

The robots' wow factor went international. TV crews made the haul upwardly from Phoenix stations—and even from the BBC—to film in Flagstaff, Ariz. People stopped to pet the robots like kittens in Fairfax, Va. And customers reported paying the $1.99 delivery fee only for the kick of having a robot deliver them a loving cup of java.

"Information technology was amazing to me the stir information technology acquired," says Ben Hartley, Sodexo'southward managing director of campus dining at NAU.

Robotic results

Vendor Starship Technologies supplied the vehicles in both cases. The fleets are at present upward to 40 machines at George Mason and 32 at NAU. Surprisingly, no vandalism has been reported on either campus across students wanting to put stickers on the vehicles—leaders say humans tend to protect the robots like little siblings.

Photograph courtesy of Sodexo

The vehicles operate on a combination of bogus intelligence, ultrasonic sensors and cameras. (Humans tin can monitor the machines and take them over at any moment.) The robots map campus and go better at navigating it, but mishaps can occur. When one motorcar went rogue off campus in Flagstaff, Hartley plant information technology and put it in his back seat—and endured an ear-splitting alarm. "Information technology was screaming until I got him back to campus," he says. "It set off a panic—they idea I was picking him up to pirate their technology."

The number of deliveries has averaged 400 per day at NAU, jumping to 600 during finals week. At that place was no upfront cost, Hartley reports—the company provides the robots and keeps the delivery fees, and the universities pay them some revenue.

"It was amazing to me the stir [the robots] caused." —Ben Hartley

At George Mason, the foodservice section has actually added 20 student workers, called "robot runners," to make full the commitment vehicles. Even with that additional labor cost, the performance's net revenue has grown past five% since introducing the option, according to Jeff McKinley, a Sodexo district manager who oversees the university'southward foodservice.

NAU had hoped to encourage breakfast participation and saw a "noticeable uptick" when the robots were added, Hartley reports. All the same, he calls overall growth "small." He advises beau FSDs to avoid multiyear contracts and to moderate any wild expectations. "If you think you're going to put robots in and grow your sales by 25%, that's probably not accurate," Hartley says. "It's a component. Nosotros're going to pilot, and if information technology's a situation of moving money from our left to our right pocket, nosotros're going to have to reevaluate."

Why robot

Other universities, such as the University of Wisconsin-Madison, are poised to launch robotic delivery this twelvemonth. Ongoing labor shortages get in a priority, says Peter Testory, director of dining and culinary services for the academy'south Partition of University Housing. It's not but total-time positions that are being left vacant, he says—fifty-fifty the number of student employees has declined year over twelvemonth on campus.

Autonomous delivery will as well free up space in some crowded lunch venues, leaders promise. "Between the students wanting it and expecting information technology … [and our] hoping information technology'll open upwards some seats in our facilities, information technology'due south kind of a perfect storm of opportunity," Testory says. (UW-Madison has selected a vendor and plans to start robot commitment within the next few months.)

Photograph courtesy of Sodexo

"Lodge has changed, non only students," he adds. "They are used to services being readily bachelor to them, non having to bulldoze, not having to own a car, not having to store, ordering premeasured, ready-to-melt dinners from Amazon or Blue Frock. As a provider, we have to react to what they're used to, what their needs and wants are—good, bad or indifferent."

Major foodservice players are getting into the game also. Chartwells Higher Education has expanded a campus delivery pilot it started earlier this year at the University of Houston, calculation more than retail concepts for on-demand commitment and increasing its number of delivery locations. And Aramark recently acquired Good Uncle, a meal delivery service tailored to college students that launched in 2016.

The homo touch

Autonomous vehicles aren't the simply doable delivery pick if you lot're willing to hammer out the logistics, every bit Oregon State University in Corvallis, Ore., has proven. It launched a late-night delivery program, Food2You, in autumn 2015 under the direction of Kerry Paterson, director of residential dining and catering for University Housing and Dining Services. The offering was dreamed upward on three weeks' notice afterwards a summer brainstorming session that underscored students' desire for more late-nighttime offerings.

Food2You started by delivering pizza betwixt 9 p.m. and midnight. It soon hit max oven capacity of about 120 pies per night—"Information technology's like Super Bowl Dominicus every night," Paterson says—and added items such as salads to spread out the need. Fresh-broiled cookies and milk are now top sellers. Water ice cream also proved popular, just information technology wasn't a good delivery combination with warm pizzas.

A key advantage: Unlike pizza delivery from off-campus vendors, or fifty-fifty robots on other campuses, Food2You comes all the way to private dorm rooms. (Couriers don't written report what they meet behind the door unless a serious health or safety concern presents itself.) Logistically, iii drivers collect a ready of orders for each of the three residential sections of campus. Eight couriers stationed in those areas see the drivers and take it from there.

"Order has changed, not just students. They are used to services being readily available to them, not having to bulldoze, not having to own a car, not having to shop, ordering premeasured, ready-to-melt dinners from Amazon or Blue Frock."—Peter Testory

All in all, Food2You requires almost fifteen educatee employees per night. Leaders report it has increased revenues—39% of students living on campus participated in the 2 highest meal plans in 2018-19, up from 31% in 2015-16.

The programme has given Oregon Land a competitive advantage among prospective students, says Jennifer Vina, the division's director of marketing and communications. "When we highlight this, we become a lot of gasps and oohs and ahs," she says. "Parents can't believe you can get a pizza delivered right to your room, and students oasis't encountered it on other campuses. Information technology becomes a unique selling tool."

Fresh alternatives

The Ohio State University (OSU) has expressed stiff interest in autonomous commitment just is holding out for a system that provides accessibility for people with disabilities, including those whose hearing or vision is impaired, says Zia Ahmed, manager of dining services at the Columbus, Ohio, school. "We truly believe that having that bigger vision is going to solve for many other people," Ahmed says. "If we can discover a way to help the manufacture get at that place sooner, that will benefit society as a whole."

In the meantime, OSU has joined universities such equally Xavier and Instance Western Reserve in piloting an attention-getting "pizza ATM." Rather than microwaving a precooked pizza, information technology takes a 10-inch raw pie (previously topped with pepperoni, cheese or a breakfast combo by a human worker) and puts it through an oven in under 4 minutes.

The goal is for the special machine to run 24/7, simply it's not currently running more than eight hours a solar day, as it's non compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act outside of business organization hours. Braille lettering is available to help the visually impaired phone call a staff member for assistance, but such lettering isn't all-encompassing enough to allow such customers operate the machine on their own.

Until that happens, Ahmed is starting to conceptualize pickup hubs for his campus. These kinds of stations, where diners tin utilise lockers to efficiently selection up preordered meals, have been tested at many high-traffic locations, including Great American Ball Park, where the Cincinnati Reds play. He's also dreaming nigh delivery by drone. "This is the future, admittedly," he says. "I don't think it'south too far off."

Source: https://www.foodservicedirector.com/operations/delivering-demand-future-campus-food-delivery

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