Common excuses for not eating healthy are that it takes too much time to prepare, it’s not easy to find when you’re busy or in a hurry, and that it’s too expensive. But according to 28-year-old entrepreneur Luke Saunders, those excuses don’t necessarily hold up when it really comes down to it.
He launched his start up Farmer’s Fridge last year, which is essentially a vending machine with jars of a variety of salads. The salads are day-old donations that didn’t sell at the corporate locations. (All of the salads are perfectly good for up to three days.) The goal was to put the machines in office buildings, food courts or stores in order make healthy food easy and available, especially in lower income areas where the only other lunch options are fast food.
The salads are made from high-end ingredients like blueberries, kale, fennel, and pineapple. Each one comes out in a plastic mason jar, its elements all glistening in neat layers, the way fossils might look if the Earth had been created by meticulous vegans.
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But even with prices ranging from $7 all the way down to $1, it’s not really taking hold they way Saunders thought it would.
At the East Garfield Community Center in Chicago where salads are $1, Saunders went to talk to some of the employees to see how the machine was doing. It turns out at that price, it wasn’t doing too bad, but some people said if it cost much more than that they wouldn’t purchase them. He came across the security guard, Margaret Harris, who was not a customer at all. She said she doesn’t eat salads because they are nasty. She prefers to eat burgers and pizza.
“That woman literally will not try lettuce! She doesn’t want vegetables. What do you do?” Saunders said. “Food is so emotional and driven by history. Just plopping a vending machine in front of someone is not enough.”
There is so much more involved in the obesity issue in the U.S. beyond just whether or not people prefer veggies. Even if people are eating more vegetables, stats are showing people just eat more in general. Plus, earlier this year, the Farm Bill cut food stamp benefits by $8.7 billion over the next 10 years, shaving about $90 a month off of the incomes of 850,000 households. And the truth is, in most neighborhoods across the country, especially low income ones, junk food is cheaper and more available.
Farmer’s Fridge has done well in certain offices and locations, but it isn’t profitable yet. Saunders isn’t giving up, however. He hopes to expand to many more locations in Chicago and other states. Read the entire compelling story from The Atlantic here.
