Kiwibot and Sodexo bring robotic food delivery to 3 campuses

Kiwibot, a robotic last-mile delivery company, said it's partnering with Sodexo to expanding its robotic fleet at university campuses. Starting this month, Kiwibot deliveries will be available at New Mexico State University, Loyola Marymount University, California, and Gonzaga University, Washington.

Kiwibot offers full remote and in-field customer support to businesses and integrates with any business’ point-of-sale system to distribute their food products using "cute-looking," self-driving robots.

The partners, according to Kiwibot, envision a subscription program in which every person in a Sodexo-serviced location can access any goods that can fit into a robot and are located on a university campus. 

In practice, college students will be able to use their meal plans to request Kiwibot deliveries through Sodexo’s local delivery app Bite+. Anyone with the app can enjoy the service, with each delivery having a flat cost of $2, plus 10% of the order size.

Kiwibot was founded in 2017, quickly gaining notoriety after launching a pilot at the University of California-Berkeley campus. After completing more than 150,000 deliveries, Kiwibot expanded to San Jose, Santa Monica, Denver and Medellin.

“Our success comes from incredible customers like Sodexo who are willing to change the status quo,” said Felipe Chávez Cortés, cofounder and chief executive of Kiwibot.

“This is just the beginning of our offerings to college students to test out the latest in robotic food delivery and provide universities across the U.S. with the future of smart campuses," he added.