Well, my first post for the year is about food! After a very long time I had the opportunity to attend a bloggers meet hosted by Owl Tech Pvt. Ltd., thanks to Karthik, a fellow blogger and good friend.
Owl Tech Pvt. Ltd. owns Frshly, a first-of-its-kind automated retail market place. FRSHLY is a system which brings consumers and various food providers together.
Imagine you are busy at work or need to catch a train and need your lunch in hand in less than 2 minutes. FRSHLY is like the middleman who brings the food from various food providers to you through a vending machine of sorts. Interesting isn’t it? Well, I had the opportunity to view this mechanism in person at SP Infocity, Chennai and it was incredible.
FRSHLY is currently operational in IT parks, Railway Stations and Airports in Chennai and Bengaluru. They are working on expanding their operations specially towards bringing this high tech automated vending machine in trains.
The menu is updated on a daily basis as chosen by the Frshly team. The food can be either ordered through the Frshly app or at the location of the vending machine.
I chose a vegetarian meal combo from Delhi Highway. The lunch combo consisted of 2 rotis, jeera rice, channa and paneer tikka.
Apart from the good food, here’s why Frshly stood out for me:
- The packaging was of great quality, leak-proof and sealed to retain freshness of the food.
- The quantity for the price was a win-win. Fresh quality food and decent quantity for a reasonable price is always a good thing!
- The team members of Frshly take their food quality control seriously. We had an issue with the rotis being dry and they took our feedback positively.
- It takes 90 seconds for the food to be dispensed from the machine so the waiting time between ordering the food through the app or directly on the spot and the food is minimal.
- The food, depending on what you order is served hot or cold. The vending machine has an inbuilt oven to heat the food for you. That was what won me over.
- Speaking of freshness, the date and time at which the meal was packed is given on the packaging. The time frame within which the food should be consumed is also mentioned.
- For those of you who are health conscious and would prefer salads to rice, Frshly has got you covered. Depending on the day’s menu as chosen by them, you might just get lucky!
Overall, the concept and how Frshly works is no doubt unique. It would be interesting to see it fully functional in trains, more IT parks and maybe even malls. A long as the food is fresh, tasty, easily accessible with less waiting time I’m all for it!
