Put a Fork In It with Automated Lunch Service

Sept. 8, 2016

Automated lunch served on-demand is making it easier to stay in during breaks (if tha'ts your thing).

I personally like to take a lunch break. It’s a chance to stretch the legs, leave the office and give the head some space from the morning madness. Others, however, may see lunch simply as an intrusion on productivity. Finding the take-out place, standing in line, wondering what to order, worrying about diet restrictions...so many things that get in the way of the work schedule.

So why not automate the food intake? Or at least the ordering and delivery.

Enter Forkable, a service that relies on a “lunch bot” to automatically select and schedule lunches for everyone in the workplace based on the individual's personal preferences. After each meal, users provide a rating so the lunch bot can learn to tailor the menu to best suit the users' tastes. Meals are customizable and can be canceled at any time via a web interface.

According to Forkable co-founder Nick Naczinski, this automated lunch service has benefits, including:

  • Massively increased productivity: Teams that order with Forkable save time that was previously spent choosing restaurants, ordering food and leaving the office to pick it up. (All stuff I like to do.)
  • Improved team morale: Forkable delivers all of your team’s meals at once, which turns lunchtime into an opportunity for your whole team to bond and share ideas. (Sounds like more work to me.)
  • Happier employees: Every day Forkable delivers meals that not only suit individual food preferences/dietary restrictions, but that are delicious, healthy and made with high-quality ingredients. (To keep hunger and food comas at bay.)
  • Save you money: Cheaper than catering (and way cheaper than hiring a full-time kitchen staff). “So no, you don’t have to raise a Series D to munch on our lunch.” (Nick said that, not me.)

Okay, so it all sounds good. Now I’m just waiting for drone delivery.

About the Author

Stephanie Neil | Editor-in-Chief, OEM Magazine

Stephanie Neil has been reporting on business and technology for over 25 years and was named Editor-in-Chief of OEM magazine in 2018. She began her journalism career as a beat reporter for eWeek, a technology newspaper, later joining Managing Automation, a monthly B2B manufacturing magazine, as senior editor. During that time, Neil was also a correspondent for The Boston Globe, covering local news. She joined PMMI Media Group in 2015 as a senior editor for Automation World and continues to write for both AW and OEM, covering manufacturing news, technology trends, and workforce issues.

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