A startup from Harvard Innovation Labs wants to put healthy smoothies in a place they’re not typically found — inside convenience stores.
The food tech company smoodi was founded in 2018 by Pascal Kriesche and Morgan Abraham. The company offers an automated, self-serve blender that cleans itself after each use. Smoodi also provides smoothie pods filled with frozen fruits and vegetables for use in its machines.
Smoodi recently announced a $5 million Series A round to scale nationwide. The round was led by a group created by former distributor Keith Canning, with participation from investors including UnderscoreVC, Allston Venture Fund, FCP Ventures and various angel investors, such as the former President of Nespresso, Frédéric Levy, and Blue Rhino founder Billy Prim.
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Smoodi has 13 employees and, although the team is fully remote, they have a space at the Artisans Asylum in Allston for repairs or R&D work, Kriesche said.
The Boston-based company started off testing its smoothies in corporate offices, Kriesche told BostInno, but soon realized that convenience stores offered a more scalable approach, because they had their own built-in frozen-food supply chain.
“Our mission was always to empower healthy habits,” Kriesche said. “In terms of opportunity, we can put fresh and healthy options into convenience stores and offer those options to people in food deserts or some of those stores on campuses where’s there’s very limited fresh and healthy offerings.”
Kriesche said some of the company’s current customers include Seasons Corner Market, which has locations across New England, and Jolley's in Vermont. While smoodi started out in the Northeast, the company has also deployed its machines in states like Wisconsin and Hawaii.
The company aims to make its smoothies and the blending process as transparent as possible. Customers can choose a base flavor, a liquid base, thickness and add-ins like oats or chia. Customers can watch the whole process, from the ingredients going into the smoothie to the blending and self-cleaning process.
Kriesche said smoodi is looking to scale its operations in 2023 through its newly announced partnership with Dot Foods, a large food industry redistribution company. Kriesche said working with Dot Foods would give them more flexibility in offering different order sizes to distributors and shorten the lead time from three weeks to two days.
In addition to expanding into more convenience stores, smoodi is also thinking about its reach into other industries. Kriesche said the company has seen success with its machine at Saint Francis Hospital in Connecticut. The company is also interested in placing its machines in schools and universities, once it has grown a bit more.
“There’s just so much excitement in the markets that we’re in right now, that we said OK, let’s get to scale first, and then hopefully they get in touch with us,” Kriesche said.
