First & only cake decorating robots in the world can now be found in these Central Ohio Kroger locations
When Benjamin Feltner first debuted the cake decorating robot in Gahanna last summer that he and his team at BeeHex were perfecting, word-of-mouth quickly got out, and the on-demand cake-writing machine quickly gained popularity.
BeeHex’s contract at the Gahanna Kroger ended, but with the robot going above & beyond metrics, Kroger quickly contracted BeeHex to build even more of these one-of-a-kind machines. You can now find the cake decorator at 11 other Kroger locations throughout Central Ohio!
- 1425 Worthington Centre, Worthington
- 299 W. Bridge St., Dublin
- 3600 Soldano Blvd., Columbus
- 2474 Stringtown Rd., Grove City
- 1501 W. 5th St., Marysville Marketplace, Marysville
- 199 Graceland Blvd., Columbus
- 600 E. Main St., Hebron
- 6417 Columbus Pik, Lewis Center
- 175 Lancaster Pike, Circleville
- 910 Hebron Rd., Heath
- 1155 N. 21st St., Newark
BeeHex, a 3D printing company that’s been contracted by NASA and the U.S. Army, has installed these free, on-demand cake-writing machines that allow customers to creatively decorate their own cakes (bought from Kroger). While most customized cakes take around 3 or more days to get into your hands, this machine only takes 2-10 minutes to customize a cake exactly the way you want it.
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Feltner, COO of BeeHex, gave us the lowdown of how this robot operates: customers can grab any cake of their choice from the Kroger bakery, then they’ll slide it into the drawer of the machine. They can pick out the fonts, colors, and patterns for the cake, including any custom message of their choice. “I think that’s the best feature,” said Feltner. “My friends and family and I would write the most ridiculous thing we could on a cake, and that would be a topic of conversation for the whole night.” So, yes – cuss words and inside jokes that you’d be too embarrassed to have an actual human write are allowed, but the robots do have a filter for hate speech.
This cake robot includes hundreds of pre-made designs, too, even including a man with a mullet (people definitely used this preset on 4th of July, laughed Feltner), or a beautiful watercolor dog. “It’s just all around really fun. When people walk up to us, their first question is, ‘Can I type any message?’ They get really excited.” And, because a robot will be decorating them, there’s essentially no way for “Congratulations” to be misspelled, unless the customer misspells it while inputting it into the screen, which will hopefully not be the case considering most of the time, there’s an employee there to help.
BeeHex started selling cookie decorating machines to larger establishments, such as Cheryl’s Cookies. In 2020, everything slowed down of course, and BeeHex had the time to get more creative. They wanted to start selling these machines to grocery stores, such as Kroger, but Kroger was more interested in a full cake decorating machine instead of just cookies. They suited a machine specifically for them.
“Customers have loved it. Especially for last minute forgotten cakes or surprise parties. It’s perfect for those occasions,” remarked Feltner. “Maybe they couldn’t find someone to decorate their cake – it fills that need, too.”
Feltner emphasized, “This particular machine is the only one in the world.”
For anyone interested in learning more about how this cake writing robot works, here’s an informational video.
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