Innovative hot-chain technology serves up bento for busy office workers
- Using technology to ensure a sizzling hot meal is readily available
- “Hardware-as-a-service” (HaaS) opens up endless possibilities for established caterers
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Hong Kongers are familiar with how a hot chain works: think dim sum trolleys in Cantonese restaurants where the food is always served hot. But a hot meal is not a given when you work in a busy commercial area with only one hour for lunch. Long queues even for takeaways. This is an ordeal that many office workers face and what inspired the idea of Wada Bento.
Wada Bento is a Hong Kong start-up that uses innovative hot-chain technology to support vending machines that store bento boxes at above 60C to ensure food quality and safety. Wada Bento, which specialises in Japanese cuisine, has now placed vending machines in over 14 locations across Hong Kong, including Cyberport, Hong Kong Science Park and prime retail-and-office complex Admiralty Centre.
“We wanted to use technology to solve the pain point of office workers having to struggle to get a satisfying hot meal over a short lunch hour. From developing the machinery to getting the right licenses to launching the vending machines on the market, it has been a long process,” revealed Jason Chen, Co-founder and CEO of Wada Bento.
All vending locations are no more than half an hour away from Wada Bento’s central kitchen to ensure that the meals are still warm when loaded. The food is kept at above 60C during the entire process using hot-chain technology. When a customer makes a purchase, it is rapidly reheated to dispense a piping hot meal on demand.
The internet of things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and Wada Bento’s own hot-chain technology provide the backbone of Wada Bento but it is Co-founder and Executive Chef Manabu Oikawa’s menus that make the bento boxes a real hit with locals, who love Japanese cuisine.
Oikawa, with 25 years’ experience in the F&B industry, has already created 250 recipes which are stored in Wada Bento’s database. “Meals that are baked, steamed or barbecued are best suited to our model, but we have limitations when it comes to things like tempura so we will continue to improve and experiment.”
“Every morning we start preparing the meals in our central kitchen using cooking robots controlled by computer programmes. At around 11am, we start the distribution to the vending machines,” said Chen.
So far Wada Bento has received four patents from Mainland China, the United States and Japan on their hot-chain technology. The company has also entered the business-to-business market by offering “hardware-as-a-service” (HaaS) to large F&B providers. Using Wada Bento’s machines gives these caterers the opportunity to expand their business without having to worry about technology development.
“With the Covid-19 pandemic raging on, even the very traditional and well-established F&B industry realises they need to embrace innovation, to expand their scope of business and improve safety so that customers feel at ease when consuming their products,” explained Chen.
Through these partnerships, Wada Bento vending machines are now installed at school campuses and hospital lobbies, with the hope that this network can expand into residential housing estates.
It is also through HaaS that Wada Bento now has the chance to expand into the Japanese market. With Japanese bento as the company’s selling point and Japan being the country of vending machines, it is encouraging for Wada Bento to be able to enter that market because of its hot-chain technology.
“We are in talks with several Japanese F&B companies who are interested in using our machines. In Japan they usually dispense meals in cold chain, so customers have to reheat the meal themselves. They also have specific machines like the ramen machine. But a hot chain like ours does not exist yet. We expect our machines to be in operation in Japan by July this year,” said Chen.
The company is also working with an investor to bring Wada Bento, the full version, not just the machines, to Vietnam, where people prefer all their meals hot.
“The programme helped us immensely with media exposure and connecting us with investors. Through the HKTDC we’ve attended numerous events like the Asia Financial Forum and Mobile World Congress, giving us valuable networking opportunities,” said Chen.
The HKTDC Start-up Express 2022 is now open for application until May 4, 2022.
