Kraft unveils kiosk that reads your face, selects your dinner

Using a technology of indeterminate origin, Kraft has come out with an kiosk designed to scan customer’s faces in-store and determine which Kraft foods are best suited to certain consumers.

Annoyingly, the Fast Company piece doesn’t say whether this scanning of faces is opt-in, or if the machine just scans every poor schmuck that passes by. Also not addressed is whether the data is stored or if it is used in any other ways. But scanning your supermarket loyalty key-fob will enable the kiosk to go through your prior purchasing history and make suggestions based on how frequently you veg out in front of 30 Rock with a sad Lean Cuisine. Last item of note in this vein- the kiosk is quite creepily called the “Meal Planning Solution.”

Although the machine deals exclusively in Kraft-brand recommendations (duh), the company says the goal is to broaden consumers’ dinner repertoires with suggestions of mac and cheese and frozen pizza:

The average shopper, says Kraft’s VP of retail experience, Don King, has a paltry 10 recipes in his or her average meal-time rotation: Spaghetti, pizza, hamburgers, chicken, etc. Kraft’s goal is to help them expand that repertoire using, of course, Kraft products. Plus, 70% of them enter the store without a clue as to what to serve that night for dinner.

There is one bright spot, however- the machine dispenses samples, which improve grocery shopping by approximately 117%. Do you see yourself using a marketing tool like this? Do you think this kiosk will encourage customers to try new foods, or is it another greased slope on the slide into crushing obesity and reliance on frankenfoods?

[Fast Company via Gawker]