People have come to expect fresh and healthy food on-demand, whether it’s being brought to your home by restaurant-delivery companies like Grubhub or prepared-meal companies like Factor75.
But a new Chicago startup is betting that people want even quicker access to prepared food, and it's doing so by placing refrigerators stocked with healthy eats inside apartment building lobbies.
Alvo, which started opening its smart refrigerators around Chicago early last year, is selling meals, snacks and beverages out of its fridges in residential buildings. It's a different take on a similar idea from Chicago startup Farmer's Fridge, which operates smart refrigerators in office buildings and airports.
Here’s how Alvo works: Customers first have to download the Alvo app, where they can browse menus at nearby Alvo refrigerators. Once they’re ready to buy an item, they use a personal QR code in the app to unlock a fridge and then take the items they want.
To prevent theft, the refrigerator has a sensor system, similar to Amazon Go store technology, that knows exactly which items each customer takes from the fridge. Customers pay for how many and which items they take, and are charged on the payment method affiliated with their Alvo account.
Available options include curry chicken bowls for $7.50, Italian zoodle bowls for $6.50, and gingerbread oats for $5.50. Beverage options include boxed water, oat milk, coconut water and kombucha, which range from $2 to $5.50. Many options are gluten-free and vegan, and contain no additives or preservatives.
“I always had a passion for food and I’m obsessed with clean food,” said Alvo co-founder and CEO Leila Khan. “It was really challenging to find these types of food for myself and my family, and I wanted to create some kind of platform where I could provide people with 100% clean-ingredient snacks, drinks and meals.”
Alvo’s lead chef, Megan McCoy, is a former cook for The Alinea Group and Matthew Kenny Cuisine. She attended Le Cordon Bleu Chicago and has been cooking in the Windy City for the last nine years. Alvo meals are prepared in a commercial kitchen in Albany Park.
Alvo currently has seven refrigerators in Chicagoland, in neighborhoods like Lakeview, Edgewater and Ravenswood, as well as in suburban Joliet. Khan said the fridges, which are manufactured in China, are restocked every two days. Alvo uses purchase data to decide which items to put in refrigerators. Any uneaten food is donated.
“With our dashboard, we can see what kinds of items are more popular,” Khan said.
Alvo started working on it business concept in 2018 but didn’t open its first refrigerator until the beginning of 2020, Khan said.
When Alvo first launched, it was focused on private business offices, but because Covid-19 closed many workplaces, Alvo swiftly switched its focus to residential buildings, which differentiates it from Farmer's Fridge.
Farmer's Fridge puts its refrigerated vending machines in office buildings, hospitals and airports. And this week, the company announced it will begin selling its food at three select Dunkin' restaurants. Founded in 2013 and operating hundreds of machines around the country, Farmer’s Fridge has raised more than $40 million to date.
Alvo is strictly focused on residential buildings, but the upside to placing refrigerators in apartment and condominium buildings is that customers are buying food at all hours of the day, not just business hours, Khan said. Alvo said it has seen customers buy food as late as 1 a.m.
To help grow the company more quickly, Khan said she plans to begin raising venture capital funding soon. Currently, Alvo employs eight people. They do all the cooking, delivering and maintaining of the fridges.
In the future, Alvo plans to collaborate with local restaurants on meals for its refrigerators, which could help boost the startup's profile, Khan said.
“We want to give people not just the product, but we want to give people immediate access to high-quality fresh food,” Khan said. “It’s healthy food with an elevated touch.”
