Food ordering and delivery marketplace Grubhub is working with Kiwibot, a last-kilometre robotic delivery company, to provide robot delivery services on college campuses across the USA.

The service will first be available at the University of North Dakota before rolling out to additional schools next semester. Kiwibot joins Grubhub’s existing partners, including Cartken and Starship, on nearly a dozen campuses offering robot delivery.

“When it comes to the campus dining experience, we see robot delivery as a complementary offering to traditional delivery since the robots can navigate hard-to-reach areas on campuses,” said Adam Herbert, senior director of campus partnerships at Grubhub. “Our campus partners have been asking for us to help bring this delivery option to their school, and we are excited to partner with Kiwibot to expand this innovative and convenient type of delivery to more colleges across the country.”

Felipe Chávez, CEO of Kiwibot, added: “It is an exciting endeavour for Kiwibot to expand our partner base. Our partnership with Grubhub means we’ll be able to provide an integrated delivery service that allows students to experience Kiwibot delivery right from Grubhub’s app. We are honoured to bring innovations to the University of North Dakota community with our disruptive robotic service that delivers meals, happiness and extraordinary moments.”

And Orlynn Rosaasen, director of dining services at the University of North Dakota, said: “Bringing a delivery service to campus was an offering we’ve been wanting to provide at the university, and we are excited for this innovative delivery service to become available to students. We know just how busy students are, and this type of delivery will provide them with one more option to access food on campus during their busy days.”

Students will be able to select this delivery option via the Grubhub app from on-campus dining locations, including the Memorial Union Food court and Wilkerson Dining Center. The Kiwibots rely on technology with a high-driving autonomous system and can operate in snow and extreme weather conditions. For safety, they move at the same speed as a human walking pace and can hold up to 11.3kg.

This partnership grows Grubhub’s delivery options on college campuses, providing opportunities for students to get their meals while creating healthy relationships with technology developments that contribute to making day-to-day life on campus more efficient. Grubhub partners with more than 250 college campuses across the USA to give students the ability to integrate meal plans directly into their Grubhub account and access restaurants both on- and off-campus for delivery and pickup.

Grubhub is part of Just Eat Takeaway and has more than 365,000 restaurant partners in over 4000 US cities.

Kiwibot was founded in 2017 and launched its first pilot at the University of California-Berkeley campus. It has made more than 200,000 deliveries on US university campuses and cities.