Honors Program student Kiandra Peart, a Brooklyn, NY native who graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in December 2023, looked around campus and saw a problem: 24/7 access to healthy food for college students.  Dining halls and restaurants have limited hours that often don’t align with when students might need a meal.  Restaurants may be too far away and are facing staffing challenges that may limit their hours and food options. 

What’s a savvy Tech student to do?  Invent a solution, of course!  From this problem was born Reinvend, a vending company that partners with local restaurants to provide college students with 24/7 access to healthy, filling meals. According to Peart:

Reinvend is bringing students exactly what they want; good food, whenever. Reinvend delivers fulfilling meals from all your favorite restaurants to strategically placed, vending machines right on campus. We work with restaurants to create custom compact packaging that allows for food texture and flavor to be preserved while refrigerated, and fit into our vending machine compartments. We use custom rotary vending machines which allow for customers to retrieve their meals from a small locker located on the machines rotating drum. Our menu ranges from baked goods, to rice bowls, sandwiches and more. When food gets close to the best buy date, we donate all meals to food rescue non-profit organizations.

Peart has a history of being an entrepreneur.  She founded her first startup, SLATE, during her first year at Tech.  Her partners and co-founders were her first friends, met through the Honors Program.  She got involved with the Create-X I2P program, giving her the confidence to create new products, like Reinvend.  That first year on campus was when Peart was introduced to typical student eating patterns—a bit erratic and not always healthy.  The transition in 24/7 food access from NYC to Atlanta was also a bit of a shock, and services like Uber and Doordash proved to be cost prohibitive on a student budget.  Enter Reinvend. 

The idea began with exploring ways to earn passive income through vending machines and blossomed into a solution for the campus food problem.  Peart created a prototype for the Reinvend machine, as well as a customer-facing brand Chew – Want (a play on the phrase “what you want”).  As Peart says, “at Reinvend we always aim to stock our vending machines with exactly what Chew-Want.”  After her second year, she began developing a business plan and, while studying abroad at Georgia Tech in Lorraine, met her business partner Gabe Shafiq.  After returning to Georgia Tech, they launched the company and applied for Create-X.  Their involvement with Create-X led to participation in the Fusen portfolio, which is a venture capital fund started by Christopher Klaus.

They spent the past summer refining the brand and participated in Demo Day, allowing them to showcase the startup to students and investors, and then built up a group of brand ambassadors over the fall.  About the brand ambassador program, Peart said:

We started the student ambassador program on campus as a way for students to work with us on developing the best product for them. The program is for anyone looking to gain experience, work on something meaningful, or just believes in Reinvend’s mission. Its super chill and is meant to just be a fun way for students to get involved and for us to make sure that we are always being customer centric with our practices. Students get to make a visible difference on campus, meet like-minded people and get cool merch. So, if anyone has ever been interested in the startup world this may be their chance.

They will be opening another round of student brand ambassador applications this spring. 

They are now working with GT dining to introduce the vending machines across campus and hope to compete in the InVenture Prize this spring.  Peart has a vision for Reinvend to become the “future of automated convenience” on college campuses, focusing on consistency of product quality and open lines of communication with students to understand their wants and needs.  Future machines could include things like school supplies and beauty products, just to name a few.  You could even find them in unexpected places, like nightclubs where you need that perfect pair of flat shoes or apartment buildings, where residents might need toiletries or grocery items.  Reflecting on the future of Reinvend, Peart says:

Convenience is what drives innovation, making things easier to do or get is what we all pay for, and the fastest service wins.  Always having the products you need be no further than the front door is by far the fastest and most convenient. Vending machines are simply not being used to their full potential in the US. In many Asian countries buying products from vending machines is just as common as from a normal storefront if not more popular because its literally faster, and we hope to bring that same culture to Atlanta.