By Jarrett Carter
A new food delivery service is headed to Howard University later this month, and to some students, breakfast, lunch or dinner at their doorstep may appear to be a glimpse into the future.
Kiwibots will deploy around campus beginning March 14. The remote-controlled fleet will allow students, faculty and staff to order meals through HU Dining’s Bite mobile app, and have food delivered to more than 20 residential, academic and business offices throughout main campus.
Initially launched as part of the university’s Bison S.A.F.E. mitigation plan for socially distant food service delivery, testing has been underway for the Kiwibots throughout campus for the last month and met with positive reviews from students.
“Students are genuinely excited about the expansion of the dining program, which we hope encourages more flexibility in maintaining busy work and studying schedules,” said Aisha Brown, general manager of Sodexo Dining Services at Howard University. “Everyone can appreciate being able to get good food on the go, and the Kiwibots make Howard one of the first HBCU institutions with this kind of innovation in foodservice programming.”
Customers will meet the Kiwibots at a variety of staging locations to enter a special code and retrieve their food. There are no worries about meals being picked up by someone who didn’t make the order, or someone taking the robot itself; each Kiwibot is equipped with its own tracking system and made with heavy metal to prohibit tampering or theft.
Howard is the first historically Black institution to join the Sodexo-Kiwibot campus partnership, which has already debuted at schools such as New Mexico State University, Loyola Marymount University, and Gonzaga University.
“Sodexo deserves a lot of credit for their investment in this kind of program across their college food service portfolio,” said Brandy Jamison, marketing manager for the Office of Auxiliary Enterprises. “Our community will really enjoy the convenience and novelty of the Kiwibots here on campus.”
