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The future of frozen yoghurt to launch down under

Nick Hall

An innovative U.S. franchise brand dubbed the ‘Future of Frozen Yoghurt’ is set to disrupt the Australian dessert market, following successful international expansion.

Reis and Irvy’s is the world’s first soft-serve vending robot, providing customers with a 24/7, staff-less, self-service experience that promises to redefine the food-retailing landscape.

Troy Bingham, Reis and Irvy’s Australian licensor said the brand’s dedicated approach to autonomous technology placed it at the forefront of the growing, global ‘unattended retail’ market.

“This is just the start of what’s coming. We are going further down the robotic retail path, so this unattended retail is really going to take off in Australia in the near future,” Bingham said.

Reis and Irvy’s patented robotic vendor has the ability to serve six flavours, with six toppings in a 60 second window, condensing the traditional 60-100sqm frozen yoghurt or ice cream storefront into a 1.5sqm self-sufficient robot.

Since launching, the brand has grown to over 250 franchisees across the U.S. with over 1100 pending robot installations, aggregating over $47m, with additional contract commitments for over 2750 robots currently underway.

Bingham, a former food-retailing franchisee himself, said the he was excited to be pioneering the technological revolution down under.

“I was looking for a business opportunity that was not only a market disruptor but also something that would be around in the future and that could keep evolving by adding new opportunities,” he said.

“Having owned a retail food franchise before, the Reis and Irvy’s model immediately caught my eye. The high cost of staff, rent, and utilities in Australia made it a “no brainer” as a solution to serve high quality products to customers in an engaging and fun way, without the high barriers to entry and operation that retail-based franchises are experiencing”.

Unlike the U.S. model, Bingham is integrating a supply chain management system, providing franchisees with a full-service model.

“We do the location negotiations, install the machines, refill the robots with products, clean the kiosks, and distribute the funds collected. To make things even easier, our franchisees get access to online real time reporting capabilities which show them product trends, live sales data, and more. Our franchisees are essentially responsible for assisting in the marketing and promotion of their kiosks”.

The coming months will see Reis and Irvy’s unveil an initial 10 machine network, before rapidly ramping up expansion in 2019.

“Our plan is to have our first 10 machines installed and operating here shortly with an additional 100-200 launching over the next 12 months,” Bingham said.