J-MOMO, ready meals, what goodness!
The Italian start-up has revolutionised the world of vending and catering
The concept of ‘vending’ has been strongly revalued by the catering sector in recent years. In fact, the convenience of a ready-made dish that can be reheated and served as if it had come out of the oven at home is more appreciated.
J-MOMO is a start-up company that has developed fully-automated restaurants and markets that can be installed in companies, offices, housing estates, indoors and outdoors, and anywhere there is an outlet.
Using J-MOMO’s automated restaurant markets, it is possible to buy hot meals as well as do your shopping easily and instantly, without having to go to the supermarket, use a delivery service or, in the case of a company, have an in-house canteen service.
Thanks to the high technology of J-MOMO’s vending machines, it is possible to open a 24-hour point of sale, capable of dispensing products of all kinds 7 days a week, 365 days a year.
The system created by J-MOMO is capable of serving meals to businesses with more than 100 employees, as well as offices, gyms or, more simply, on the street. J-MOMO designs and develops the entire layout by supplying the various machines to customers and preparing meals in its centralised kitchen. A delivery service taken care of directly by J-MOMO or the operator then delivers and places the food in the vending machines.
The start-up takes care of the entire technological process, from hardware and software development to the installation of the vending machines. Thanks to a dedicated customer app and vendor dashboard, it is able to manage, deliver and replenish customers on a daily basis with a quality offer that meets the needs of the target group within each location.
For corporate and corporate catering, J-MOMO’s technology automatically recognises the products picked up and charges them to its means of payment in the case of corporate prepaid cards.
This model has already been successful in the US and China, while in Europe there are still few players in this field. This makes both the Italian and European markets particularly scalable for J-MOMO. In fact, the company aims to triple its presence in Italy. Expansion plans are also planned abroad with the strengthening of existing channels in the UK, the USA and Austria, and opening new ones in France and Switzerland. A landing in the Middle East is also under consideration.
The company has developed the technology in-house and has started the patent process. The J-MOMO dispensers are equipped with an RFID system and are connected to a cloud-based platform.
During the quarantine due to Covid-19, the company proposed the first ‘condo supermarket’, installing the smart vending machines also in housing estates; tenants could thus avoid long queues outside supermarkets. J-MOMO vending machines and markets can also be installed in offices and gyms with ad-hoc food selections.
The J-MOMO team is led by Andrea Caggiano, a serial entrepreneur and founder of several start-ups, and consists of 14 employees with expertise in both the start-up world and multinational companies.
One of J-MOMO’s most important initiatives is the research project that has been launched under the coordination of Prof. Paolo Tamborrini, in collaboration with the Innovation Design Lab (www.innovationdesignlab.it), a Turin-based hub where design guides innovation in favour of entrepreneurship and sustainability, and which brings together two important Italian universities around the themes of food, design and Made in Italy: the University of Parma (Department of
Engineering and Architecture) and the Polytechnic University of Turin (Department of Architecture and Design).
