smoodi’s quick and nutritious smoothies are revolutionizing healthy eating on the go.
In the hustle and bustle of modern life, finding quick yet healthy food options is a necessity. While health-conscious diets have long been a rising trend, there’s an increased emphasis on sustainability, wellness, and convenience. This shift is paralleled by the growing popularity of medications like Ozempic, initially developed for diabetes but now widely used for weight management, reflecting a broader trend towards preventive health in our dietary habits. As a result, there’s rising demand for nutritious, accessible food options that cater to everyone, from busy college students to working professionals and parents.
Enter smoodi, a game-changer for anyone looking for a healthy food option on the go. Its automated smoothie machines can quickly blend a nutritious meal tailored to your taste and dietary preferences. Combining convenience, quality, and nutrition, smoodi is the perfect solution for maintaining wellness amid the daily hustle.
With increasing labor costs, smoodi simplifies operations and delivers immediate ROI as a self-sufficient smoothie machine.
The 2024 State of the Restaurant Industry report from the National Restaurant Association highlights a critical issue: 98% of operators are struggling with higher labor costs, with 38% saying that their restaurants were not profitable last year. As labor costs continue to rise in retail and foodservice industries, many businesses are turning to automation to maintain and improve their profit margins. Automation not only alleviates the financial burden of high labor costs, but also streamlines operations by reducing the need for staff onsite to perform routine tasks like taking orders and prepping food.
smoodi is at the forefront of this trend with its turnkey smoothie program. Designed for simplicity and efficiency, smoodi machines don’t require any labor after setup; they operate around the clock with minimal maintenance and consistently blend high-quality smoothies. This automation allows businesses to drastically cut operational costs while improving efficiency and customer satisfaction. From healthcare facilities and universities to offices, smoodi is perfect for any setting and satisfies the growing consumer demand for convenience and healthy food at any time of day. Reach out to see how smoodi can benefit your business.
Supercharge your smoothie with our boosters! Add some subtle sweetness with our 100% organic blue agave syrup or honey—no artificial ingredients. For an extra kick, add our Energy Booster, which is packed with coffeeberry, ginseng, ashwagandha, guarana, and green coffee. For immune support, opt for our Immunity Booster with vitamins C and D3, niacin (B3), zinc, and elderberry.
Whether you’re energizing your morning, supporting your immune system, or simply craving a refreshing drink, our Booster Bar lets you customize your smoodi to suit your taste buds.
Self-service smoothie machines have arrived on campus! Both Woodworth Dining and the Atrium are excited to introduce you to smoodi. Three flavors are available, and they are an easy to use, zero added sugar, real fruit, and zero food waste product. And they are less than 100 calories per 16 oz. serving. Great for some nutrition on the go or as part of your meal. You can use your meal swipes for them also!
smoodi wants to see its smoothies in the hands of, well, everyone, and a new infusion of capital and distribution partnership has the startup well on its way.
Incubated out of Harvard’s Innovation Lab in 2018, CEO Pascal Kriesche and Morgan Abraham call their company a “healthy smoothie store-in-a-box” that is essentially a robot that mixes fruits, vegetables and add-ins like protein into a smoothie.
Robot food and cooking machines aren’t new… remember Chowbotics and Miso? However, Kriesche touts in an email interview that smoodi’s beverage vending machine not only self-cleans, it is also not the traditional “black box,” but is transparent so that customers can watch the frozen ingredients travel through the blending process and even watch the machine clean itself.
smoodis range in price from $5.99 to $7.99 and come in flavors like Brain Boost, which is banana and berries; Green Energizer, made of spinach, banana, matcha and mango; and Tropical Vibes, which includes pineapple, mango and coconut.
Since its commercial market launch in 2021, smoodi grew its revenue by 25% monthly and had zero churn, with some convenience store chains asking for additional deployments following the initial pilot, Kriesche said. He forecasts 5x growth for 2023.
“This is a testament to our valued customer base who have recognized the shifting market trend in consumer’s demand for a healthy and delicious product,” he said. “The smoothie market has doubled over the last five years, and the trends for fresh, healthy and vegan are only accelerating.”
Leading the new $5 million Series A investment is a group formed by Keith Canning, a former distributor. Joining him were FCP Ventures, UnderscoreVC, Allston Venture Fund, WSPR Fund, Phoenix Club and a group of angel investors, including the former Nespresso president Frédéric Levy and Blue Rhino founder Billy Prim.
Kriesche and Abraham are deploying the new capital into scaling smoodi nationwide. That has so far included adding to the executive team with a chief revenue officer and chief operating officer, as well as regional managers, and scaling up production capacity of both equipment and consumables and go-to-market. The company’s production capacity is already at 200 units per month, and Kriesche expects consumables to grow 10x in the next six to nine months.
smoodi is already in convenience stores, offices, restaurants and other retailers, but along with the investment, the company has a new partnership with food distributing giant Dot Foods.
Not only will this move help smoodi expand beyond convenience stores, but Dot Foods will eventually take over smoodi’s equipment distribution and enable the company to launch in new sites across North America in two days versus the three weeks it currently takes, Kriesche said.
Next up in 2023, the company plans to introduce new flavors, continue R&D on its machine to automate its drink booster dispensing and will test smoodi in Europe.
“We plan to get into thousands of locations through Dot Foods in the next 24 months and many more thereafter,” Kriesche added. “The biggest challenge in scaling a business like ours has always been the frozen supply chain. With Dot Foods, we have a partner that excels at that and has the best coverage in the food industry.”
I write about entrepreneurship and intriguing startups across the U.S.
German-born entrepreneur and inventor Pascal Kriesche intends to build the Keurig of smoothie makers – a vending-machine-sized device that will serve up the healthy, blended drink of your choice at the push of a button.
Kriesche, 29, named his company smoodi after he realized his first name choice — “pineapple” — was already taken. But he does have a clever pineapple-shaped thumbprint as his logo. He is working on an MBA from Harvard Business School at the same time he navigates the early stages of developing his company.
Entrepreneur Pascal Kriesche wants to get America drinking more smoothies smoodi
Trained as a mechanical engineer, Kriesche nevertheless decided to forego building a prototype smoothie maker until he had collected market research, testing his idea in about 10 offices in the Boston area. Employers paid him to come in and serve smoothies to their employees.
“We were able to validate that they are interested,” Kriesche says.
Karen Hood, a senior manager at Boston Consulting Group, was an enthusiastic test pilot for the smoodi concept. She had Kriesche come in for a week.
“I have a bit of a reputation for jumping on opportunities to work with entrepreneurs starting new businesses,” Hood said. “My dad was a bit of an entrepreneur. I always keep my eye out for the newest thing. I’m someone who rarely turns down a cold call.”
Earlier, Hood brought a Bevi into her office, billed as the next generation of office water coolers, offering fizzy, flavored water.
“They also approached us. They’re a little farther along than Pascal,” Hood said of Bevi. “I jumped on that because I like to provide the most interesting options for the folks in my office. I try to be ahead of the trend.”
Exactly what Kriesche needed. Hood said Kriesche, and smoodi, exceeded her expectations.“I thought they’d come in with a few trays of smoodis,” she said.
Instead, Kriesche showed up with a blender and two assistants and offered a menu of smoothie options with various ingredients and add-ins to choose from. Kriesche offers strawberry, banana, mango, pineapple and blueberry smoothies, as well as vegetable-based smoothies such as spinach and kale, and six “boosters,” including chia seed, peanut butter and coconut flakes.
Hood said Kriesche had an add-in of the day with explanations of what the ingredients were. He had order forms and surveys to rate the smoothies. He also asked what a person’s mood was before and after the smoothie, and a key question, “Did you talk to someone you don’t normally talk to?”
“That’s a terrific question, in line with our values,” Hood said.
The idea is that not only will the smoodi machine offer healthful drinks, it will also encourage social interaction among the staff.
“At the end of the week people were so excited, engaging with Pascal, asking questions,” Hood said. “It was a fun week for us.”
Kriesche charged Hood $550 for the week. She’s open to bringing a smoodi machine into the office once it’s available.
“The feedback was amazing,” Hood said. “People loved them. It was a nice break from the desk. It was healthy and tasty and it was fun to engage in that way. Really a win-win all around.”
Another of Kriesche’s test pilots was Seth Hauben, head of the Boston office of GSVlabs, a Silicon Valley-based incubator.
“I found him to be tremendously engaging,” Hauben said of Kriesche. “He’s got the right mindset. He’s going about it the right way, continuing to push down the path. Hopefully we’ll have a smoodi machine in our space in the near future.”
Kriesche and his team of interns have validated that businesses are interested in offering smoothies… [+] smoodi
Hauben did offer a couple of caveats. He wondered about how much the machine will cost to make. Will the quality of the smoothies it makes always be the same? Will there be any maintenance on the machine, or will it be hands-off for the customer?
“If he could deliver that quality of smoothie with a machine at a reasonable price point it would be a homerun,” Hauben said.
The idea to test the market before building a smoodi machine came from Mark Roberge, one of Kriesche’s professors at Harvard Business School.
“People who get the inventive, entrepreneurial spirit over-obsess with the product development piece first,” Roberge said. “That’s not the biggest risk. The biggest risk is whether it resonates with the customer.”
Roberge, 42, was part of the founding team at HubSpot, Inc., the Cambridge-based inbound marketing and sales software company that raised $125 million when it went public in 2014, and currently has a market cap of $5.445 billion.
Even though he’s not a traditional academic, Roberge is a full-time faculty member at Harvard Business School, and is currently focused on developing a sales curriculum.
“It’s exciting because so many schools look to Harvard for their curriculum,” Roberge said.
Roberge likes Kriesche’s idea and believes it’s “very well aligned” with trends he’s seeing in the business world.
“It’s a war for talent out there,” Roberge said. “Companies are becoming more aggressive around unique values to bring to employees, something more than better pay.”
Of course Kriesche will have to build a smoodi machine, and it won’t be easy, he said. He’s looking to raise about $100,000 this fall for the prototype. Among the challenges are preventing cross contamination of ingredients inside the machine and making it self-cleaning.
The third challenge, says Kriesche, is the refrigeration part, which he says will be very costly and complex to provide the right ingredients at the right temperatures.
“But none of these challenges are impossible to overcome,” Kriesche said. “I’m happy it’s complex. If it was super easy the product would already be out there.”
