Last-mile delivery company Kiwibot has partnered with food services firm Sodexo to expand robotic delivery services to university campuses in the U.S.
Robot deliveries will be available at three campuses: New Mexico State University, Loyola Marymount University, California, and Gonzaga University, Washington from later this month.
Kiwibot offers full remote and in-field customer support to businesses and integrates with any business’s point-of-sale to distribute food products via robots. The partnership said together they aim to provide a subscription programme where every person in a Sodexo-serviced location can access any goods that can fit into a robot, and are located within a university campus.
College students, at the three universities, will be able to use meal plans to take advantage of Kiwibot delivery, through local delivery app Bite+. The rollout will be supported by Sodexo.
“We are excited to grow our robot food delivery service with Kiwibot and provide customers with a safe, convenient, contactless, and innovative solution,” said Aurelia Valot, the VP of digital transformation and innovation, Sodexo. “We are looking forward to expanding this offering in the coming months.”
Kiwibot was founded in 2017 following the launch of a pilot at the University of California-Berkeley campus. After over 150,000 deliveries were completed at Berkeley, with product development and testing for the B2C model, Kiwibot expanded to San Jose, Santa Monica, Denver, Dallas, Taipei, and Medellin with a new B2B business model and partners.
“Our success comes from incredible customers like Sodexo who are willing to change the status quo,” said Felipe Chávez Cortés, the CEO of Kiwibot.
“This is just the beginning of our offerings to college students to test out the latest in robotic food delivery, and provide universities across the US with the future of smart campuses.”
The company aims to expand to over 50 locations over the course of the next three years.
