JUNE 14 2021
The Swedish foodtech company, Picadeli, is launching its salad concept in the USA. In recent years, the company has expanded significantly in Europe and established its digitized salad bars in over 2000 locations. Now Picadeli aims to achieve another important, major goal - to establish its salad concept in American grocery stores. “We will launch the concept together with one of the USA's leading food chains and, in addition, we have several ongoing discussions with other major players,” said David von Laskowski, President and CEO of Picadeli and Greenfood Group.
Now Picadeli is crossing the Atlantic and launching its concept in the home of fast-food - the USA - one of the world's largest food markets. The US market is more mature than other markets, with healthier fast-food options, and a wide range of herbal products.
“It is a market that brings with it both gigantic opportunities and great challenges. Americans have a consumption pattern that fits our concept; they often eat meals outside the home while there is a great interest in wholesome food options. We will now establish our healthy salad concept at important food and service stores, and thus create efficient and rapid growth just as we have done in Europe,” David von Laskowski, President and CEO of Picadeli and Greenfood Group said.
Through rapid expansion, Picadeli has managed to establish itself as a market leader in Europe. Today, the company's salad bars are located within several of Europe's largest food chains. However, expansion was temporarily halted by the pandemic, but now the market has turned, and the company is growing once more.
“During the pandemic, we focused on digitizing more processes and automating our ordering system using AI. This makes it easier for us to scale up to meet the needs of the American food giants, thus we can grow in parallel in both the European and the American markets, now that the demand for healthy fast food is increasing again,” said David von Laskowski.
The pandemic has also led to several of the larger chains reviewing their food concepts and, instead, looking for concepts with higher food safety that are easier to manage. Picadelli's digitized salad bars are among the safest on the market as they offer traceability down to each individual pack of salad, shielding hoods that protect the food, and an advanced cooling system that keeps the produce fresh.
Interest from the American food chains has been great and Picadeli already has several pilot projects planned.The Swedish salad giant has also identified a gap in the American market;a large part of the competition is in the category called “fast casual” fast food restaurants, without table service, that offer quality food at a higher price.Picadelli's offer is lower in price, closer to fast food, but with a large plant-based range of the same quality as the fast casual restaurants.
“90 percent of our products are vegetarian, and 70 percent vegan, which means that we have an attractive and wide range that we are now making available in a market where the interest in eating plant-based foods is continuously increasing,” David von Laskowski said.
About Picadeli's Arctic salad bar
The patented Arctic salad bar offers a large assortment of fresh salad ingredients that consumers mix themselves. The digitized salad bars send real-time information about, among other things, the products' durability, and possible temperature deviations. Hygiene-focused design solutions such as automated hand disinfectant, hanging hooks for tongs, and hoods for maximum protection, together with the digital monitoring system and a patented cooling system provide a maximum food-safe and fresh concept.
About Picadeli
Picadeli is a Swedish salad pioneer which is driven by the conviction that fast food should be the opposite of junk food. The idea is simple; to change people's way of buying and eating salads through self-selection. The high-tech salad counters are found in more than 2,000 stores around Europe, from Scandinavia in the north to France in the south. Since the start in 2009, Picadeli has made it possible for the grocery trade to offer its customers an innovative, fresh, and tasty salad concept. Picadeli has been part of the Greenfood Group since 2015, a leader in healthy food in the Nordic region.