Food robots are returning to campus with a new company, Cartken, after weeks of hiatus due to Grubhub ending its partnership with Yandex. Credit: Courtesy of The Ohio State University
Food delivery robots will soon return to Ohio State after over a monthlong hiatus.
The university announced March 3 that Grubhub would retire its food rovers produced by Yandex, a Russian-owned technology company, as other U.S. companies began to impose sanctions on Russian leaders and oligarchs following the invasion of Ukraine. The new robots will be from a company called Cartken — an Oakland-based technology startup — Jenna DeMarco, senior corporate communications associate for Grubhub, said in an email.
DeMarco said Grubhub has worked to find an alternative to the Yandex rovers and chose Cartken in the end as the replacement. University spokesperson Dave Isaacs said he is glad to bring the program back because of the new robots’ widespread reputation.
“Their popularity really validated our prediction that students were going to appreciate this kind of delivery,” Isaacs said. “So when we had the opportunity to bring back the program in a different form, we thought this would be an excellent opportunity.”
Isaacs said the new food robots arrived on campus Tuesday and will begin operations next week in a limited capacity until further testing is completed. He said these robots will only be used from Mirror Lake Eatery to Lincoln and Morrill towers for now, but expects them to be in full use throughout campus by the fall.
DeMarco said the university and Grubhub have worked together to provide students multiple ways to transport food on campus.
“Now we’re building on our efforts to enhance the dining experience with this technology to make for quicker and easier deliveries,” DeMarco said.
Cartken, founded in 2019, uses artificial intelligence, sensors and cameras to deliver food in many different environments, according to its website. The company’s food delivery robots currently deliver meals to customers through Grubhub, DoorDash and other food delivery applications in Miami.
Isaacs said the university is looking forward to the new partnership and anticipates a positive effect on students.
“We’re excited about the return of rovers to campus,” Isaacs said. “We are able to do this with our same vision of reducing cost of delivery, reducing the time it takes to deliver food and to enhance sustainability.”
Correction: In the original version of this article, Dave Isaacs was attributed to have said that the university worked to find a replacement to the Yandex robots and chose Cartken. However, this information came from DeMarco, and Grubhub ultimately chose Cartken. The story has been updated to reflect this.
