We think of vending machine food as junk food like chips or candy, but there are more than 170 vending machines in Chicago called Farmer’s Fridge that sell salads. They are the brain child of Luke Saunders, the company’s founder and CEO, who came up with the idea when he couldn’t find anything to eat on the road while he was traveling a lot as a sales representative.
Since the first Farmer’s Fridge vending machine appeared in Chicago in 2013, the company has sold one million salads in Chicago and Milwaukee and plans to expand more next year. Saunders told Fox Business that he knows that people might worry about food contamination when buying a salad from a vending machine, and explained, “We have someone with a Ph.D. in food science with a specialty in food safety on site every day to ensure everyone is following protocols.”
