The boxed lunch industry in Japan is being challenged by Kamakura Foods, a Hong Kong startup started by a former Sony chip engineer with Japanese education.

The company intends to launch a tech-based platform that will automatically serve bentos instead of offering the food itself.

Every day in Japan, a lot of people, notably businesspeople during the hectic lunch hour, stuff their bellies with bentos. While millions are sold in specialty bento shops and convenience stores and even by restaurants to suit lunch hour demand, some are created at home.

Since its founding in 2019, the company—which goes by the moniker Wada Bento—has sold more than 600,000 hot bentos in Hong Kong. Its thirty locations—office buildings, college campuses, and construction sites—are home to forty of its devices. It uses its own kitchen in the city to make up to 1,200 Japanese-style bentos every day, and it also sells food from Hong Kong that is supplied by its culinary partners to satisfy local palates.

Set to open in Kitahama, Osaka's major business district, on Friday, it will be the first bento vending machine in Japan. The machine will be installed in an Obento Monogatari location to sell prepared box lunches from the tiny neighborhood company.

In a recent interview, Kamakura Foods CEO and founder Jason Chen claimed that bento makers in Japan were masters at their craft. He continued by saying that, as a result, they are not planning to invest in kitchens.