Smart Fridge: the Canteen on 1 Square Metre

The system detects both and charges for both.

Very reliable. The camera/sensors have an accuracy of >99%.

The smart fridge holds a cooled 2–8 °C, like a standard fridge for fresh food. The difference lies in the monitoring: our software measures the interior temperature continuously and logs the values. If the temperature rises above the limit, you get a push notification and sales are stopped automatically, so no goods spoil and no customer gets a spoiled product. The temperature log also serves as proof for the hygiene documentation (HACCP), which is required for fresh food. Especially in offices, clinics and co-working spaces with salads, sushi and bowls, this gap-free cold chain is decisive for safety and legal certainty.

Depending on range and location, the gross margin is 40 to 55 percent, and at high-footfall locations the machine pays for itself in 6 to 12 months. With a smart fridge in the office, the margin comes from fresh goods like salads, bowls and sushi, which carry higher selling prices than classic snacks. What matters is lower shrinkage through dynamic pricing: perishable goods can be reduced in price in the evening instead of being thrown away. The investment is 5,000 to 12,000 euros to buy, plus power costs of about 3 to 5 kilowatt hours per day in cooled operation. Since the smart fridge appeals to facility managers and HR rather than the classic operator, often less the margin counts than staff catering without administrative effort. We'll work through your scenario concretely.

Access runs, depending on the setup, via app, company card or RFID staff badge. The employee holds their card to the reader or opens the app, the door unlocks, they take freely from the compartments, and on closing the system charges the removed goods automatically. Payment is cashless: via a stored card, Girocard, credit card, Apple Pay or Google Pay. In companies, the RFID badge is especially practical because it's already there and requires no extra card. For the operator this means: no cashiering, no waiting, no staff at the device. The grab-and-go principle works for employees as simply as reaching into the fridge at home.

On private ground you usually don't need a permit; on public ground a special use permit is required. With a smart fridge in the office, this is mostly uncritical, because the device almost always stands on company premises, in the break room or reception area, that is, on private ground without special use. More important here are the HACCP hygiene requirements, because the smart fridge cools fresh goods like salads, bowls and sushi: the cold chain must be maintained continuously and documented, which the digital temperature logbook handles. Whoever refills themselves bears responsibility for the best-before date and labelling. If refilling runs via a caterer, they often handle these points too. We advise you on the technical implementation.

Via telemetry software, you monitor stock levels, sales and device status in real time on smartphone or desktop. With a smart fridge in the office, besides stock level the temperature is especially important, because fresh goods like salads, bowls and sushi must stay cooled continuously. The software monitors the cold chain constantly and reports by push if the temperature drifts out of range, before goods spoil. This way you also meet the hygiene documentation under HACCP as a matter of course. For facility managers this means zero administrative effort: you see at a glance when refilling is needed, without checking yourself. We roll out updates over the air, so an on-site visit isn't necessary.