Avride, an autonomous mobility company, and Sodexo Campus announced an agreement to accelerate autonomous robot delivery across Sodexo Campus partner colleges and universities in the United States, connecting Avride’s proven delivery technology with Sodexo Campus’s national higher education footprint.
The agreement creates a ready framework for participating campuses to move from interest to implementation in weeks instead of months, while giving students, faculty and staff more convenient access to dining beyond traditional service points.
Sodexo Campus works with approximately 425 higher education institutions across the US, creating a national platform to scale autonomous delivery in campus environments where demand, foot traffic and operating complexity are high.
Dmitry Polishchuk, CEO of Avride, says: “College campuses are where delivery is part of daily life. By bringing Sodexo Campus’s deep knowledge of campus dining together with Avride’s real-world delivery experience, we have an opportunity to set a new standard for how food moves across campus.”
Roberta Frierson, vice president of digital, campus, Sodexo North America, says: “Technology is most powerful when it solves a real need for the people we serve.
“Autonomous delivery helps expand access, increase convenience and support more agile campus operations. Through this agreement with Avride, we are making it easier for institutions to adopt practical innovation that can improve the student experience and deliver measurable value for campus communities.”
Avride’s robots are designed for pedestrian-heavy spaces, including walkways and pathways adjacent to residence halls, academic buildings, libraries and campus dining locations, using a combination of sensors and machine learning to autonomously navigate sidewalks and support reliable order fulfillment in busy campus settings.
The technology is already operating on major US campuses, including The Ohio State University, Indiana University Bloomington, the University of Arizona, and Salisbury University.
Across campuses and cities, Avride has completed more than 600,000 autonomous deliveries in a range of conditions, giving the company operational experience to deploy and scale fleets across varied environments.
For colleges and universities, autonomous delivery can help modernize campus dining by extending service reach, supporting peak demand periods and giving students more flexibility in how and where they access meals.
