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Banana-selling robots pitch customers in test run at Chicago grocery stores

From bananas to burgers, store aisles to sidewalks, an army of robots has descended upon Chicagoland with the singular mission to bring us food.

Robotic serving carts, once the stuff of foodie science fiction, are rolling among us in increasing numbers to deliver meals on wheels to customers — whether they are ready or not.

Take Servi, an AI-powered robotic cart that has popped up recently in three suburban Jewel-Osco stores, following shoppers around the produce aisle and spouting prerecorded witticisms in an effort to sell bunches of bananas atop its trays.

“We’re still gathering data, but so far, it shows very promising results,” said Danny Dumas, senior vice president for Florida-based Fresh Del Monte, which is testing out the produce robots in the Chicago area for a potential national rollout. “The robot may have a voice that can scare a few people away, but overall, people like it.”

Looking a lot like the self-driving restaurant serving cart it was designed to be, Servi would make a less than exciting “Transformers” character, but is nonetheless an able addition to the ranks of food delivery robots hitting the streets of Chicago in recent months.

In July, a Chicago White Castle became the chain’s first to offer robotic delivery, employing a fleet of autonomous outdoor delivery carts named Coco to fulfill late-night cravings for sliders on the Near West Side.

A Coco food delivery robot rolls along North Aberdeen Street at West Washington Boulevard in Chicago on Sept. 4, 2025. (Terrence Antonio James/Chicago Tribune)

Last month, Serve Robotics launched delivery service from over 100 restaurants with dozens of robots traversing 14 Chicago neighborhoods on the North and West sides in collaboration with Uber Eats. It is the first Midwest market for the Uber spinoff, which is up and running in Los Angeles, Miami, Dallas and Atlanta.

Serve is planning to have a fleet of 2,000 green-and-white robotic carts, whose headlights resemble eyes to give them a “friendly” visage, tooling around sidewalks across the U.S. by the end of the year, the company said.

Unlike Serve, the Servi robots (no relation) are indoor-only units created primarily as mechanical hash slingers. Built in South Korea for Bear Robotics, an eight-year-old California-based startup, the AI-powered robots are guided by lidar and cameras to navigate busy restaurants and other hospitality environments to deliver food and bus tables.

Other applications include senior living facilities, warehouses and hospitals, with about 15,000 Servi robots gainfully employed everywhere from Denny’s restaurants to Princess Cruises, according to Derrick Harmon, head of U.S. sales for Bear Robotics.

Three heavy-duty Servi Plus models — each 4-feet tall, weighing 136-pounds — are on a new assignment: hawking fruit at grocery stores.

Produce giant Fresh Del Monte has leased the robots to sell bananas and pineapples to customers at three suburban Chicago Jewel-Osco locations. The robots have been programmed to follow shoppers around the produce aisle, stopping at predetermined locations to pitch their wares with voice messages, a display screen and four trays of fresh fruit.

The two-month pilot program, which runs through October at Jewel stores in Westmont, Fox Lake and Huntley, may expand more broadly if Fresh Del Monte sees a significant uptick in sales.

“We thought it’d be a good fit to try to merchandise produce at the retail level,” said Dumas, who is spearheading the program for Fresh Del Monte. “We decided to work with Jewel stores in Chicago to get a feel for how people … would react to having a robot in the produce department interacting with them and trying to sell fresh bananas, fresh pineapples.”

Early learnings include discovering that pineapples roll off the robot’s trays as it zigs and zags to avoid shoppers and other obstacles, so Fresh Del Monte and Jewel are sticking with bananas for the trial run.

The breadth of Servi’s dialogue with shoppers is contained in four greetings. The voice, which initially sounded like the campy, over-the-top robot from the 1960s TV sci-fi “Lost in Space,” has been softened to a slightly less machinelike timbre.

“Hey, you. Yes, you,” the robot said to startled shoppers during a recent visit to the Westmont store. “Grab a Fresh Del Monte banana before I eat. Just kidding, I’m a robot. I can’t eat.”

Tom Beardsley, of Downers Grove, and his daughter Joan, 4, encounter a Fresh Del Monte Servi roving robot offering bananas, Sept. 25, 2025, at Jewel in Westmont. (Dominic Di Palermo/Chicago Tribune)

Some shoppers intent on selecting produce were oblivious to the robot, but for those who noticed, reactions ranged from amused to annoyed at the agile but lane-hogging banana cart circumnavigating the fruit and vegetable displays. A few engaged with the robot as it stopped to strike up a conversation.

Tom Beardsley, of Downers Grove, was doing a little mid-afternoon shopping when his 4-year-old daughter spied the robot from her perch in the shopping cart. Servi stopped in front of them and began talking, entertaining both the young shopper and her father.

“I was probably too shocked to realize what was going on, then it ran away,” Beardsley said. “I am going to buy bananas, so I did almost grab one.”

Beardsley, who was stocking up for his sister’s weekend wedding, finally caught up with Servi a few aisles away. His daughter reached over the cart and plucked a bunch of bananas from the top tray, putting a smile on both their faces as Servi sped away.

Other shoppers seemed less enthralled by Servi, which has been roaming the Jewel produce aisle since the beginning of September.

John Moscinski, of Westmont, alerted his fellow shoppers with a loud cry, “beware the robots” when he saw Servi merging in front of his cart on the main aisle past the produce section.

A regular customer, Moscinski has crossed paths with Servi several times during previous visits. He was not sold on the value of the robot as a banana sales vehicle.

“It’s a gimmick,” he said. “Sometimes it gets in the way.”

Dennis Houdek, another regular shopper from Westmont, was genuinely surprised by his encounter with Servi as he foraged for vegetables, calling it “incredible.”

While impressed with the deployment of robotic technology in the produce aisle, he wasn’t moved to buy any bananas from Servi on this particular visit.

“Unfortunately, I don’t have bananas on my list,” Houdek said.

Servi is definitely moving more bananas than the standard static bin display, according to Silvia Castillo, Jewel store director in Westmont.

It also cuts down on shopping time by bringing the bananas to anybody who hangs out in the produce department long enough for Servi to make the rounds, she said.

“It sells bananas,” Castillo said. “Customers really like the fact that Jewel-Osco is trying to embrace innovation.”

Fresh Del Monte, which spun off from canned foods parent Del Monte in 1989, is the largest fresh pineapple and the third-largest banana marketer in the U.S. with $4.3 billion in sales last year, according to the publicly traded company.

Whether robots become a standard sales platform across the U.S. may depend on how well they do at the three suburban Jewel stores over the next month, Dumas said.

While early returns are promising, Dumas hedged a little, saying it would take a very successful test run at Jewel to invest in a national fleet of robotic banana salesmen.

“We’re going to have to sell a lot of bananas to be able to pay for them,” Dumas said.

rchannick@chicagotribune.com

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