Restaurants

‘Smart fridges’ today, automated drive-thru’s tomorrow?

The quest to build an automated pizza drive-thru led this entrepreneur to an opportunity to offer 'smart fridges' to provide worksite foodservice.

Frederic "Speed" Bancroft, left, installs one of his first "smart fridges" at a business center in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

March 22, 2023 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

It wouldn't be a stretch to say that today's food prep automation technology is blurring the distinction between limited service restaurants and vending machines.

Food preparation technology continues to advance along with vending technology, as attested by concepts such as Automat Kitchen, Yo-Kai Express and Piestro, the robotic pizza maker.

One challenge that such concepts inevitably confront is the high investment required to build a machine capable of preparing and serving a high quality product. Addressing this challenge is not for the faint of heart.

Frederic "Speed" Bancroft, an entrepreneur in Baton Rouge, Louisiana working under the name, Speedy Eats, has dedicated seven years to developing machines that prepare and dispense food. Like most of his colleagues who have pursued this goal, Bancroft has had to balance his time and energy between keeping up with new technology and raising money for his business.

And while the road has presented its obstacles, Bancroft perseveres, having recently achieved his first round of success: the installation of "Speedy Eats Nourish to Flourish" self-serve food machines in several Baton Rouge worksites.

A problem in search of a solution

His journey began several years ago with a twist of fate at a McDonald's drive-thru.

"It all started when a lady yelled at me at McDonald's in a drive-thru," Bancroft told this website in a phone interview. "Their credit card machine had gone down and I handed this lady a credit card." There was no "out of order" sign on the order machine.

"The problem was they yelled at me when I handed them the credit card because I didn't know the machine was down," he said. "That kind of upset me. I went home and I wanted to build something that was automated where nobody would have that experience again."

At the time, Bancroft had some funds after selling a family-owned paper and chemical distribution company in Jackson, Mississippi in 2009.

A mechanical engineer by training, he designed a hamburger machine to allow a customer at a drive-thru to place an order on their app and not have to get out of their car. The machine cooked the burger from scratch and added cheese and shredded lettuce. It included a bread distributor, a lettuce distributor, an onion distributor, a broiler and a warmer.

With the design complete, Bancroft provided his specs to an engineering firm that came back with a $1.8 million proposal to build the machine, a number that was well beyond his resources.

Frederic "Speed" Bancroft describes the design of his automated food drive-thru in the Speedy Eats Baton Rouge, Louisiana headquarters.

Bancroft then turned his sights on a self-serve automated pizza machine that contained fewer moving parts: a storage fridge, an oven, a lid-placing device, a warmer, shelving and an enclosed trash receptacle. He was confident the machine could be built for less than his previous model.

He raised $525,000 from friends and family and another $337,000 from crowd funding. But he still didn't have enough money to hire additional help to bring the project to fruition.

Technology fosters new direction

His journey took a turn last year while he was investigating refrigeration technology.

"I had to learn to put a fridge together to complement our automated pizza kitchens," he said. "In doing my research, I ran across Byte."

Byte Technology, based in San Francisco, provides a self-service, point-of-sale refrigerator that customers access by swiping a credit card. An online dashboard gives visibility into fridge inventories, transactions, product expiration dates, fridge temperatures and P&L information.

While Bancroft was initially drawn to the technology for his automated pizza machine, he soon recognized it offered something more. He recognized that the Byte refrigerators, known as "smart fridges," could provide an onsite fresh food solution that many worksites in Baton Rouge were looking for.

While the automated pizza machine was still a work in progress, Bancroft reasoned that he could operate "smart fridges" commercially and earn some of the capital needed to continue his drive-thru R&D work.

"I was looking for a way to get into the market quickly and start making money," he said.

He began cold calling businesses about the smart fridges, and the responses were even better than he expected.

Bancroft installs a "smart fridge" at a logistics business in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

A market in search of a solution

The businesses — office buildings, logistics companies, bars and education sites — were interested in having a self-serve fridge that Bancroft said he would stock twice a week.

Early this month, he installed his first "Speedy Eats Nourish to Flourish" self-serve food machines. In the next few months, he expects to be servicing 21 "smart fridges."

"We will be stocking those fridges with fresh foods, some emergency staples like grocery items and other products in different areas," he said. "We're going to start scaling these fridges all over. We're using Baton Rouge as our beachhead."

He prepares the food in his own kitchen with the assistance of a local caterer which he supplements with snacks from Costco.

"We're buying and reselling," he said.

His next order of business is to get a handle on the business operating metrics.

"Once we have the company rocking and rolling, I plan on circling back and building, completing my second generation for the pizza (machine) and completing my second generation for the hamburger (machine)," he said.

Sanjay Maharjan, CTO and chief engineer at Speedy Eats, delivers a "smart fridge" to a customer location.

Long-term project continues

In the meantime, Bancroft, who currently employs an engineer and a delivery driver, continues to raise funds for his automated self-serve restaurants.

His automated drive-thru can be operated by one full-time employee. Once a customer places an order via their phone, a robotic arm moves the uncooked pizza from a refrigerator to the oven where it cooks for two-and-a-half minutes. The pizza then moves along a conveyor belt into a box package, after which it moves to a warmer.

The drive-thru can also be configured to include a customer facing refrigerated machine to offer a variety of food products.

After placing their order using their phone, the customer can use their phone to scan a QR code at the machine and have their food delivered to a pickup window.

Besides pizza, the concept lends itself to barbecue items, chicken nuggets, chicken tenders and buffalo wings.

In the meantime, Bancroft has high expectations for his smart fridges.

"I have found a way to hit every part of the market," he said.

Photos provided by Speedy Eats.