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Sunday, October 13, 2013

Reis & Irvy's Frozen Yogurt: Served by a Robot

As far as I could remember, the first few times I have tasted a frozen yogurt was year 2009, the time when frozen yogurt craze was still at its peak or at least on my own personal observation. Lots of frozen yogurt house opened here and there, not until the bubble tea craze took place last 2011. Both of which shows that people are now more health-conscious, thus have switched to a healthier dessert alternatives.

Speaking of frozen yogurt place, most of them are full-service type of restaurants where you tell your specific order to the staff and the staff would prepare it for you. Then there are a few that opened as a self-service type where you get a cup, fill in with yogurt and toppings and the cup will be weighed to compute the amount. But self-served frozen yogurt is a bit tricky because there's no way to predict the exact price since it is based on weight (i.e. P20 per ounce) so you need to be very careful in filling up your cup. And now comes the third type, frozen yogurt served by a robot! Wow, cool!

Last Sept. 28, 2013 (Saturday) marked the grand opening of Reis & Irvy's Frozen Yogurt and I am honored to be one of the chosen bloggers to witness this. They celebrated their opening by giving out free yogurts to the first 50 people to get in line by 11:00am.


People were so excited waiting in line to experience this frozen yogurt being served by a robot.

Reis & Irvy's Frozen Yogurt is a kiosk type of business where there is a cashier, a yogurt machine and small area to accommodate around 8 sit-down customers. As I see it, the concept is a hybrid of vending machine and a merchandiser type of arcade machine. To get a better view on this, let's watch this short video clip that I took to show you how the machine works. Click HERE.

Reis & Irvy's Frozen Yogurt kiosk

Here are the steps on how to place your order:
1. First, approach the cashier, pay P125 in exchange of a coupon.
2. Insert the coupon into the slot of the kiosk.
3. From the touch screen, choose your 1st yogurt either Vanilla, Chocolate or a combination of both.
4. Then pick your 1st topping. Choices are: peanuts, sprinkles, chocolate sprinkles, muesli, chopped cashews, chocolate pieces or no topping at all.
5. Choose your 2nd yogurt. Same choices as above.
6. Pick your 2nd topping. Same choices as above.
7. Then choose 1 from among the 4 robots: Cid, Irvy, Reis or Rev.
8. Watch as the robot of your choice prepares your order in less than 2 minutes or 100 seconds. This might be shortened if you are fast in choosing.
9. You may get your cup as soon as the slot opening on the left side opens.
10. Get your spoon and tissue from the cashier. Just add P25 for additional 2 toppings to be scooped manually.
 
It's basically a 4-layer yogurt treat.
1st/base layer: yogurt
2nd layer: topping
3rd layer: yogurt
4th/top layer: topping

Snap shots of the different steps to get to your frozen yogurt.
 
As you wait and watch, there's a visual graphics that plays on the LCD screen inside the machine while the robot arm moves around getting the cup, putting layers of yogurt, sprinkling the toppings and serving the finished product into the slot opening. The cup isn't an ordinary paper cup but a plastic souvenir cup which you can wash and keep as a souvenir. They are also selling button pins with the robot designs for P40 each.


Robot designs button pins selling for P40 each.

Based on my experience, here are some thoughts that came up to me.
Pros:
1. It gives a new and exciting experience for adventure-lovers to try this new idea of being served by a robot.
2. You are sure that your order would be free from human errors and tamper-free.
3. The taste is good, same as other frozen yogurt stores.

Cons:
1. It can be exciting at first but not sure if it's still worth the try for a second time because of the price, where the content is just half of what it is seen on the poster.
2. Prone to technical malfunction and if that happens, the operation also stops.
3. No option of fresh fruits as toppings because the machine can only contain dry and non-sticky toppings.

From the looks of their customers' happy faces, it seems that they enjoyed their frozen yogurt served-by-a-robot experience.

Happy customers.

As part of their grand opening celebration, people also had a chance to do face painting with the 4 robot designs to choose from. I find their robot designs so cute! Kudos to the graphic designers from Bacolod! Nice painting skills by Art N Faces Body Art.


I joined the fun by getting painted on my right arm.
Plus a photo-op with Reis, the pink female robot, in human form. In fairness, she acted like a real robot. Good job!

Here's a picture of me with Reis.

Before I end this write-up, I would like to congratulate Robofusion, Inc. for bringing in Reis & Irvy's Frozen Yogurt in the Philippines, the first and only robotic frozen yogurt kiosk in our country as of the moment. It surely gave this frozen yogurt industry a revival with a fresh new twist. Just to let you know, Robofusion, Inc is the leader in interactive robotic kiosk. You may visit their website to know more about the company.
 
Currently, these are the countries that
Robofusion has partnered and expanded to.
 
Here's a photo-op with the US citizen part owner, Ms. Lydia Jones.
 
Watch out as they plan to open their second branch in SM Megamall within the year.
 

To get updates on Reis & Irvy's Frozen Yogurt, kindly visit and follow them here:
Twitter: @robofusion
Instagram: @reisandirvy
Location: 3/F The Block, SM North Edsa (beside Sandwich Guy stall) from 10am to 10pm
Contact: 888-974-4442 (US toll-free number)
 
If I may suggest, it would be a good idea to position their robotic kiosk beside a science museum. What do you think?
 
Mommy Sally

5 comments:

  1. Thanks for the great post about Reis & Irvy's. We've lined up new flavors and they are all very yummy!

    The ones on the posters/videos were the bigger size - Php175. We have significantly reduced it to 2/3 due to requests from previous customers who wanted less since they couldn't finish the big cup. Pricing also went down to Php125. I would say that's one huge discount compared to other yogurt shops selling it for Php120 and up. This one comes with a robot after all. ;-) All our posters, videos have been updated to show this new size too.

    Please subscribe on our Instagram (@reisandirvy) and Facebook (reisirvysPH) for updates :)

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    Replies
    1. Hi Joy,

      You're welcome! Thank you for inviting The Binondo Mommy! Thank you for the clarifications. Wow new flavors, that would be a good news! Melon flavor seems yummy! :) And yes, I have subscribed to both. :) Congrats again!

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  2. OMG how cool is that! Hopefully they will open one in the province where i live, Tagaytay.

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  3. This is something new! Another way to bring back the FroYo craze ;)

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  4. I simply love this post of yours,. Its wonderful and nicely written.

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