MONTREAL, CANADA – It’s the era of easy and convenient, and while in the past this meant sugary and fatty foods at our beck and call, this father-son duo is looking to make fresh and healthy synonymous with on-the-go. Founders of Montreal-based Portions, Ryan Hutman and his father, Aaron Hutman, are selling jars of fresh salad in specially built vending machines with the hopes of regularizing fresh and sustainable in places with little access to either.

“We wanted to really provide an accessible solution for people on the go who want to just grab something healthy and tasty,” said Ryan Hutman, according to the Montreal Gazette. “I thought that it was just a great way to distribute food. It’s a much lower overhead than having a retail store—if something goes wrong or if the location’s not great, we take it out, and we put it somewhere else.”

Portions kicked-off on the McGill University campus this past October after the company placed its first machine in a library basement. In the upcoming year, Portions plans to add five to ten new machines, expanding to hospitals, office towers, and other locations where healthy food is difficult to find.

With salads encased in plastic jars that come from a recycling plant in Quebec and available in vending kiosks made from refurbished machines, Portions emphasizes sustainability and the environment and plans to start purchasing its greens from a hydroponic greenhouse in Laval.

And, while the salads can stay fresh for four to five days in the vending machines, Portions re-stocks them more frequently than that in order to ensure top quality.

“Every morning you’re getting salad that was made that morning; that’s really our value proposition,” Ryan Hutman said. “It’s fresh; it’s not been sitting there for a week and a half. We had a nutritionist go over everything. Our dressings are all made in-house—very little salt, very little sugar. We don’t add any sugar, actually, to anything—just keeping it all natural but playing around with a variety of spices to really bring out the flavor.”

For more information on this fresh, innovative business, check out Portions' social media.

Could vending machines offering healthy, fresh salads be the future of easy and convenient on-the-go options? AndNowUKnow will continue to report on the latest in the realm of fresh produce.

Portions