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High tech food truck puts avocado education in the driver's seat

An avocado promotions agency has created a food truck with touchscreens to educate people about avocados. In addition to placing their order on the touchscreen, guests are prompted to provide their email address so they can receive a copy of a custom-created recipe.

June 26, 2019 by Elliot Maras — Editor, Kiosk Marketplace & Vending Times

Because of their increasing popularity, food trucks are taking on a bigger role in marketing consumer products. Avocados From Mexico, an Irving, Texas agency that promotes and researches Mexican avocados, has developed a food truck to educate consumers about avocados.

Avocados from Mexico uses an Airstream for its Avo-Matic food truck.

The truck, known as the Avo-matic, recently completed its fourth annual tour of American college campuses, giving students at 13 campuses an opportunity to learn more about avocados and how they can cook with them.

When Avocados from Mexico launched the Avo-matic in 2016, it used a shipping container converted into a kitchen that was transported using a forklift.

Last fall, Avocados From Mexico overhauled the Avo-matic with an Airstream, featuring three interactive touchscreens for simple ordering customization, allowing students to enjoy made-to-order avocado snacks, learn tips, play games and win prizes. The Avo-Matic serves avocado wraps, avocado toast and Tavos — half an avocado with a choice of toppings and Tabasco sauce. 

The Airstream has a kitchen with refrigerated prep tables, a hot plate, a hot dog steamer and a hand and dish sink. The chefs in the kitchen prepare the orders, then place them in windows beneath the touchscreens. LED lights on the windows light up when an order is ready, usually in about two and a half minutes after the guest places the order. 

The Airstream has a chef and a sous chef doing the prep work in the kitchen, and an outside person monitoring the line and providing feedback to the chefs, said Irene Cabanan, vice president of experiential marketing at IMW Agency, the creative agency that helped Avacados from Mexico develop the Avo-matic.

Technology needed to attract the target audience

"We wanted to create an experience that embraces technology, something that would resonate with college and university students," Stephanie Browder, Avocados From Mexico's associate director of foodservice, told Food Truck Operator via email.

In addition to placing their order on the touchscreen, guests are prompted to provide their email address so they can receive a copy of their custom-created recipe, Browder said.

"For the current experience, guests play a trivia game on the touchscreens while their food is being prepared," Browder said. "They learn about avocado nutrition, availability, ripening and handling. They receive a score at the end letting them know their level of avocado expertise."

"Students love the new Airstream and the ability to easily customize their order," she said. "Our new menu featuring avocado toast and 'avowraps' was a big hit."

"There were at least 20 different customizations you could make," Cabanon said in describing the recent college tour. "You could customize the type of sauce or the protein that was on it, or the type of bread."

The Avo-matic evolves

The Avo-matic was originally conceived by Avocados From Mexico and Costa Mesa, California based IMW Agency, in 2016 as a way to build awareness and expand usage among millennials by adding avocados for breakfast. The tour that year covered 17 locations on the East Coast, including colleges and retail locations.

"They wanted an experience that spoke to students and millennials, and something that would be different than just a regular food truck, and a way for them to be aware of all the great things that you could enjoy with avocados," Cabanan said.

Next Now, a Chicago-based creative technology agency, developed the interactive touchscreens and the ordering software. The agency used facial emotion tracking software for the truck when it exhibited at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas in 2017.

At South by Southwest, the touchscreen prompted the guest to smile and a dial on the screen measured the size of the grin and how long they held it, said Mark Mathews, the agency's marketing and multimedia experiential strategist. Once the guest met the designated smile requirements, the screen rewarded them with a picture of themselves that they could share on social media.

"The Avo-matic combines some of our favorite elements in an activation: An unexpected discovery, bleeding-edge technology leveraged right, and a personalized shareable digital memento, all topped with a smile," Mathews said.

15 tours per year

The Avo-Matic typically does at least 15 tours per year, Browder said, in addition to a produce industry trade show.

"The goal was to make something a little more mobile," Cabanan said regarding the Airstream food truck, which launched in the fall of 2018. "We took the learnings from the shipping container…improved it and made some adjustments for this now Airstream unit." The shipping container was transported on a flatbed and positioned using a forklift.

The campuses toured this spring included Georgetown University, Howard University, the University of Virginia, Liberty University, the University of North Carolina Charlotte, the University of South Carolina, the University of Alabama, Mississippi State University, Tulane University, Xavier University, the University of Louisiana, the University of Arkansas and the University of Missouri.

Photos courtesy of Avocados from Mexico.

About Elliot Maras

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Elliot Maras is the editor of Kiosk Marketplace and Vending Times. He brings three decades covering unattended retail and commercial foodservice.