LOS ANGELES, CA – Chicago-based Farmer’s Fridge is bringing its salad vending machine to Los Angeles, California next year.

Luke Saunders, Founder of Farmer’s Fridge, tells the Los Angeles Times that he is on a mission to make healthful food accessible to people on the go.  We previously covered Farmer's Fridge's debut in Chicago.  Check out that article by clicking here.

“I was traveling a lot for work and really couldn’t find healthy food,” Luke said.  “I started thinking about ways to make it more accessible and how I could change the model of how healthy food gets distributed.”

According to its website, Farmer’s Fridge gets fresh, locally sourced produce every morning.  At 5 am, the team makes everything from scratch every day in its local, fully licensed, shared kitchen.  The salads are then delivered to the machine at 10 am.  Any unsold salads are removed and donated to a local food pantry. 

For the actual machine, it uses touch screens, bar code scanners for coupons and email receipts.  The product images, nutrition and ingredient information is available in a large, easy to read format.

"The response generally from people has been that they have really embraced it," Saunders tells the LA Times. "Right now we are trying to convince the next level of consumer – the ones who are still skeptical about getting their lunch out of a vending machine." 

The company is also interested in helping the environment.  The jars and lids are 100% recyclable and the bags, utensils, salad dressing containers and packaging are all biodegradable corn-based PLA packaging.  Also, the company states that power consumption for each kiosk is under $25 worth of electricity a month.

A lunch that is good for you and good for the environment?  I can get behind that.  Next time I’m in Los Angeles, I’m going to give it a try.

Farmer’s Fridge